Suicide prevention: How nurses can make all the difference

Every 35 minutes, someone, somewhere in England and Wales takes their own life.¹ While suicide can seem unexpected, there are often opportunities to intervene.
For instance, most people who die by suicide, in non-COVID-19 years at least, contacted their GP in the year before their death.²

Indeed, many chronic diseases that nurses see in day-to-day practice can predispose to suicide. Older people with cancer, neurological or rheumatoid disease, pain or liver conditions are all at increased suicide risk, for example.³ Depression is, of course, a pre-eminent risk factor for suicidality. About 60% of those who die by suicide have diagnosed depression.⁴