Protecting Partial-Hospitalization Patients From Suicide

TOPIC: Assessing suicide potential and intervening to prevent suicide in partial-hospitalization patients. PURPOSE: To provide information for assessing and intervening with outpatients who express suicidal thoughts and to propose a decision tree. SOURCE: Literature review, clinical experience. CONCLUSIONS: Careful assessment and sound management are required to provide treatment in outpatient settings while maintaining patient safety. A decision tree can help the clinician make sound decisions.