Suicide Prevention

Suicide Prevention Toolkit for Primary Care Practices:
This web-based toolkit is useful for primary care providers and medical practice managers in rural and non-rural settings. It includes tools to assess your patient’s risk of suicide, plan interventions, create safety plans and develop partnerships with others in the community.
Quick Links:
Tool Kit
Safety Planning – A Quick Guide for Clinicians (PDF)

Recognizing and Responding to Suicide Risk: Essential Skills in Primary Care – Training:
A one-hour training program developed by the American Association of Suicidology that provides physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians’ assistants knowledge to integrate suicide risk assessments into routine office visits, to formulate relative risk, and to work collaboratively with patients to create treatment plans.

Primary Care Pocket Guide (PDF):
The Pocket Guide for Primary Care Professionals provides a summary of important risk and protective factors for suicide; questions you can use to ask patients about their suicidal thoughts, plans, and intent; and a decision tree for managing the patient at risk for a suicide attempt. The card is designed to be printed on both sides and folded in quarters to fit easily into a pocket.

Office Protocol Development Guide for Suicidal Patients (PDF):
The Office Protocol is a template document to be completed with the staff in each primary care office to define roles, responsibilities, and procedures that will be followed when a patient is identified as being at elevated risk for suicide. Once completed, this protocol becomes an important patient management tool. This document is part of the Suicide Prevention Toolkit for Primary Care Practices.

Crisis Support Plan (PDF):
The Crisis Support Plan is used by the patient and the clinician to enlist social support from a trusted friend or relative should a suicide crisis recur. It explains roles that supportive individuals can take to help protect the person at risk for suicide and serves as an informal contract that the designated support person will fulfill these roles. Active support of a friend or loved one is among the strongest factors that protect against suicide. This document is part of the Suicide Prevention Toolkit for Primary Care Practices.

Public Awareness Materials (PDF):
Post these materials in your waiting room, exam rooms, or office hallways to provide your patients with the suicide hotline number, an important resource for potentially suicidal patients, and to help to address the problem of stigma associated with suicidality.

Zero Suicide in Health and Behavioral Health Care
The Zero Suicide Initiative is a commitment to suicide prevention in health and behavioral health care systems. The site includes a toolkit, information on the training academy, and ways to get involved.

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