Telehealth in preventing suicide (TIPS) for Suicide

From the medical perspective, suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death by one's own means—in particular by taking one's own life (in contrast to homicide, which is non-suicidal death caused by an external perpetrator, not by the suicidal individual themselves). It is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and currently affects about 40 in 100,000 men and women each year. As the most commonly used method of suicide, suicide is the most commonly studied means of suicide. Suicide has been studied extensively all over the world. It is recognized as one of the world's leading public health crises with a global impact on human social behavior.

At least 1 in 5 suicides involved alcohol intake. In the suicide population, 1.1% of patients had major depression, and 0.7% had a history of substance use disorder.

Even if we try to eradicate this problem, there does not appear to be a cure. The question of if life is worth living must be asked before the dilemma is to suicide or not, which may have to be informed to family/friends.

The most commonly used treatments for death by suicide are a combination of medications and an active surveillance approach. However, these methods may not help everyone and are not free of side effects, which may be a matter of discussion in patients with comorbidities. The benefits of using medications in suicide attempts in the treatment of depression seem to be questionable. Although there is no difference from placebo in the benefits of using antipsychotics for depression, the use of mood-stabilizers, antidepressants, and anticonvulsants increase the risk of suicide attempts. Therefore, treatments with antidepressants and mood stabilizers should be limited to those who are currently suicidal.

There was a significant correlation between suicidal ideation and psychiatric comorbidity. However, correlation was only seen in the bipolar group. The main reasons for non-fatal suicidal behaviour in the survey were personal problems (50%), social factors (28.9%), depressive disorder (23.3%), psychiatric comorbid disease and/or drug misuse (7.7%), and somatic illnesses (3.7%). Bipolar patients with previous history of suicidal behaviour had less severity of depression, but they had more severe social problem and higher rate of other psychopathology than the patients who had no previous suicidal behaviour.

Early signs of suicide include changes in behaviour such as indecision and lack of interest. Aspirin may be a good indicator of depression, and there is potential risk of suicide as the disease progresses.

A short telephone consultation did not improve the quality of life of people with suicidal thoughts or plans among those with no previously tried means of suicide.

The suicide rate in Japan has been on the rise since the mid-1970s, especially in rural areas. While suicide rate has remained low in rural and urban areas alike, it has been on the rise in Tokyo-Yokohama-Nagoya (an urban and cosmopolitan area) since 2010. The suicide rate in rural areas in Japan has always been lower than that of urban areas and this trend has continued since the mid-1970s. The suicide rate in rural areas in Japan seems to have been increasing in the past few years, although this is still considerably lower than that of urban areas.

The common side effects of telehealth are a common sense knowledge among clinicians and the public, but many patients still suffer from adverse psychosocial consequences of this technology.

The study shows that the use of phone calls reduces the use of all lethal means of suicide, even more so in high-age groups where the reduction in suicides is relatively lower.

The two experimental conditions have no effect on the suicidal behaviour but the telehealth programme has been proven to be effective. Thus telehealth may be seen as another option for eliminating the risks associated with suicide while also providing information and support to those at risk. Data from a recent study could give some encouragement while further work is being undertaken on the prevention of suicide using telehealth and telemedicine.