3.1 Mental Health Nursing Assessments

The Suicide Risk Assessment Tool has been designed for use of the Registered Nurse to gather information regarding the presenting patients experience of a “suicidal state”, in order to identify the suicide risk posed on that patient due to their mental capacity at the time and what interventions would be appropriate to implement in order to minimise the risk (psychology org). The framework is divided up into three sections. The first section is based on information the health professional requires if it was a crisis risk situation. This section addresses any suicidal thoughts and if yes - how often, any plans or intent - how often and any previous attempts - on however many occasions, the presenting patient may

Clinicians should be aware of risk factors of suicidal behavior, however, warning signs of suicide tend to provide clinicians with more information when faced with the task of making a quick decision regarding the safety of a client. For example, depression is a risk factor for suicidal behavior, however, less than 15 percent of individuals with depression attempt suicide (Goldsmith et al. 2002). Therefore, focusing on a risk factor such as depression alone will not be as effective as also assessing

Hence, the use of depression screening questionnaires or asking direct questions to the patient is a good assessment tool in identifying depression, and therefore early assistance and referrals are provided (Summerton, 2004). Moreover, asking about suicidal ideation using series of questions is a mechanism to determine if a person is having suicidal ideation (Dazzi, Gribble, Wessely & Fear, 2014). Likewise, identifying warnings signs in particular expressing feeling of hopelessness, suicidal plan, death, anger, increasing use of alcohol and drugs, not having enough sleep and withdrawing from family are important signs as well, that must have an immediate proper referral and intervention (Dazzi, Gribble, Wessely & Fear, 2014). Certainly, as what was explained in the NSW health continuing professional development for nurses CPD, that most suicide is preventable with early detection and appropriate intervention and follow up (Robinson,

In this short assignment the author has chosen one of many risk assessment tools to carry out an appropriate assessment on Danny from case study one. A number of different risk assessment tools are applicable to Danny including a suicide risk assessment form, becks depression scale and a comprehensive risk assessment, however due to a restricted word count the author will only explore one of these in greater detail. The author has chosen to critically discuss the value of the mandatory mental health brief risk screening tool (Department of Health, 2012) in the overall management of risk to

Suicide risk factors is a measurable demographic, trait, behavior, or situation that has a positive correlation with suicide attempts and or death by suicide (Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2017). Some risk factors according to Schwartz and Rogers (2004), are depression, insomnia, bipolar disorder, some specific disorders confer greater risks, social personal, contextual, and demographic factors such as previous attempts, unemployment, abuse, and bullying. Suicide risk assessment should specifically focus on the collection of data related to suicide risk factors including suicidal ideation and level of planning (Schwartz & Rogers, 2004).

Routinized Assessment of Suicide Risk in Clinical Practice: An Empirically Informed Update written by Chu et al. This article is important because it lays further groundwork in evaluating and treating individuals with suicidal symptoms. An update is essential to maintain a solid suicide spectrum and expanding the existing model that has not been updated since 1999. Chu et al talk about the suicide variables and newly discovered symptoms that correspond to the capability of suicide. The results of this journal article leads to categorizing individuals on how severe in suicide risk individuals are and how to address the risks as well as how to manage them.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year olds and the sixth leading cause of death for young people age 5 to 14 (“Teen Suicide is preventable” and “Teen Suicide”). Suicide risk factors vary with age, gender, ethnic group, family dynamics, and stressful life events. More than 90 percent of people who die from suicides have experienced these risk factors. In 2003, about

Risk for suicide related to depression, hopelessness, and poor coping skills as evidenced by previous suicide attempts, suicidal ideations with no plan, and feelings of hopelessness.

All of these risk factors aide in the taking of one’s life, yet we hardly look at the underlying causes. Instead of thinking about why someone attempted or completed suicide, we want to place blame on people, rather than any of the things above that they could have been experiencing. All of these risk factors stated above are some of the most crucial reasons that suicide is brought upon and without being educated about all of the possibilities and how we can help, we leave suicide an open door rather than a

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of deaths in the world. It can happen to or be committed by anyone but usually occurs when a person feels depressed or worthless or is facing an exorbitant amount of problems. Fatal suicidal attempts are usually overestimated, because in most cases suicide attempts do not result in death or serious injury. In most cases suicide attempts result in failure or minor injury. Which means that failed or not resulting in death suicide attempts are recorded in the deaths by suicide statistics. Suicides are still very common, they occur about once every 40 seconds in the world. When dealing with suicide you must know its statistics, its causes, and its prevention.

Personal history, more precisely a previous suicide attempt, is the strongest risk factor for subsequent suicide death (AFSP, 2015; Biddle et al., 2012; De Leo, Draper, Snowdon, & Kõlves, 2013; WHO, 2014). Due to practicalities limit, it is impossible to include all robust variables associated with suicidal behavior. Consequently, this section only includes those risk factors shown to be associated with increased risk for lethal suicidal behavior, as this is the primary outcome of this study. Table 1 lists these risk factors and the nature of studies included in this section. This section will present a review of age, gender, race and ethnicity, prior suicidal behaviors, mental illness, physical illness, and alcohol use. Noted that this is not an exhaustive list of risk factors, however, these risk factors are the most empirical support factors for suicide. Since in most cases it is a combination of factors that leads to the choice of suicide, it will be artificial to deal with these factors in isolation. Hence, the interrelationship between various factors will be discussed in this section.

Suicide is a very serious issue. A person who commits suicide must be doing so under extreme pressure and in very complicated circumstances. It is clear that there is no single factor or cause responsible for suicide, but there is a course of such factors. We will discuss the factors as under:

Other treatments used are Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), medical treatment that involves applying electrical currents to the brain which is used more to treat people with severe depression. Another type of treatment is Deep brain stimulation (DBS), a nonsurgical treatment to decrease tremor and to block involuntary movements in patients with motion disorders. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), involves delivering electric impulses to the vagus nerve (supplying the heart, lungs, upper digestive tract, and other organs of the chest and abdomen) this treatment is used to treat patients with epilepsy and depression. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive method to stimulate small regions of the brain. During the procedure a “coil” is placed near the head of the individual receiving the treatment, this is used to regulate the mood in a person. This type of treatment is

Suicidal behavior is one of the main causes of death around the world. Suicide is defined as the act of taking one’s own life, commonly due to mental illness or depression. There is a combination of community, individual, biological, and societal factors that contribute to the danger of suicide. Characteristics associated with suicide include: isolation (anti-social), loss (work, relational, financial, or social), family history of suicide, child maltreatment, mental disorder history, alcohol, and drug abuse history, aggressive or impulsive tendencies, clinical depression, prior suicide attempt(s), feelings of hopelessness, physical illness, and barriers (accessing mental health treatment). Even though several federally-funded suicide

There are 10 common characteristics with suicide. The first is the common stimulus, psychological pain. Psychological pain could be a person being picked on verbally which causes no physical injuries. The second is common stressor, psychological needs. When a person is undergoing thoughts of suicide they first start out with needs. These are what a person needs to feel better than what they already feel. The common purpose is to seek a solution. While a person wants to feel better they will try to seek a solution. This is where people will start drinking or doing drugs because they think it can help them when overall it’s only causing more damage (“Common”).