Assessment and Treatment of Suicidal Patients

The assessment of suicidal thoughts or behavior and its management are topics relevant to all clinicians, not just mental health professionals. Up to two thirds of patients who commit suicide have seen a physician in the month before their death.15 Many patients who kill themselves do so by taking an overdose of prescribed medications, and physicians sometimes unwittingly provide the means for suicide in a single prescription.3 Few patients spontaneously report their suicidal thoughts and intentions to their physicians,4 so the clinician must be alert to signals that a patient may be at risk for suicide. Although the patient . . .