Suicide Prevention: how Nurses Can Make all the Difference

The article that I picked is based on the hospital goal NPSG.15.01.01-Find out which patients are most likely to try to commit suicide. This article is a secondary article. A secondary article takes the original or “primary” work and/or information and uses it to do further research, expands onto the information or reviews the information and expands it into something of its own I believe this article is a secondary because it is a review of a primary article.

“The purpose of this article is to review the state of the science of suicide assessment training for nurses.” (Bolster, C.,M.N.A.R.N.P., Holliday, C.,PhD.A.R.N.P., Oneal, Gail,PhD., R.N., & Shaw, Michelle,PhD., R.N. 2015.) A primary article is information that is original, first hand work, that is taken in real time. Primary articles often include interviews, statistics, experiments, results and eye witnesses of the research.

While this may be a review of a research article, this article itself is not a research article but is a non-research scholarly article. The way I can tell the difference is because a research article has an introduction, method, discussion and results, is peer-reviewed and empirical. A non-research scholarly article is usually a review or summery of an empirical research article. It can be peer-reviewed, but does not have to be. I believe that the article that I picked is a non-research article because it does not clearly contain an introduction, method, discussion and result section. It is also a review of many studies, studies that the writers of this article are analyzing and using to make their point about what is going on in our health care system in relation to suicide.

The article I chose, Suicide Assessment and Nurses: What Does the Evidence Show?, is an article about patient suicide and how the interaction of the nurse or other health care professional has with a patient can make a great impact on the prevention of suicide. The article states that “The majority of people who complete suicide have visited a healthcare provider in the previous month of their suicide.” (Bolster, C.,M.N.A.R.N.P., 2015.) This particular article uses this statement to focus on four main topics: beliefs and attitudes of nurses, lack of education in suicide prevention for nurses, training programs for nurses and examples of successful training programs to help show how the above statement is accurate. Each of these topics or themes is connected in the sense that one leads to another. Nurses that have negative beliefs or attitudes towards suicide are reflected in their care, a reason that a nurse may have these negative connotations is due to their like of education about suicide and how assessment can save a life which leads to nurses needed specialized training for suicide assessment, intervention and prevention. Lastly the article goes into training programs that have been researched and found effective in helping RN’s identify patients that are suicidal and help in the prevention of suicide. All of these interconnected topics relate back to the type of patient who is likely to commit suicide. Without these fundamental assessment tools RN’s can be blind to the signs of a suicidal patient.

After reading this article it has opened my eyes to how easily signs of suicide can be missed. As a nursing student it makes me aware that I cannot let my own personal beliefs, biases or attitudes affect any of my assessments, especially one pertaining to suicide and I think this is something that should ring true for all nurses. I believe that suicide is a sensitive topic for all health care professionals, no one wants to admit that another human being would want to do harm to themselves, but this is the reality of the world we now live in. Suicide is becoming one of the leading causes of death in America and it is our jobs as health care professionals to advocate for ALL of our patients. The information in this article about health care professionals saddens me to see that they are letting their beliefs or incompetence in the subject of suicide harm their patient. It makes me, as a soon to be health care professional or even a student, be aware of how I am talking to a patient that is possibly suicidal and what I do with the information if I believe a patient to be suicidal.

In addition to how the information will change my nursing practice, what I learned from the article can help do the same. The most important information that I learned from this article is that there are now specific training programs to help health care professionals, especially RN’s, to learn how to assess patients who may be suicidal, learn more about the attitudes and beliefs revolving around suicide and how to go about addressing someone who is suicidal. As I learned in Nursing Process, assessment is the most important thing a RN can do. While the assessment of the body is extremely important, I believe that the assessment of mental health is equally as important. By learning this key assessment for suicide it helps health care professional’s better care for the patients who come into the health care setting crying out for help, who in most cases don’t receive it due to the lack of skill shown by untrained healthcare professionals. 

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