This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Dr. Paul Nestadt is about as steeped in suicide prevention as a person can be.
He treats suicidal patients as a psychiatrist, has co-authored scores of research papers on how and why people kill themselves and teaches graduate courses on the subject. But he'll be the first to admit: "I can't tell you which of my patients is likely to die by suicide in the next six months." Research shows predictions of who will be suicidal are only slightly better than a coin toss. And they haven't improved over 50 years.
But that doesn't make Nestadt hopeless. Instead, it pushes him to pursue interventions that don't require pinpointing people at risk. Chief among them: making it harder for people to carry out the act of killing themselves.
"Instead of asking every doctor to figure out which patient will die by suicide and locking that patient up, it might be that we need to make sure there aren't loaded guns available," Nestadt said. In an ongoing series, KFF Health News is examining approaches to suicide prevention that expand beyond providing people at risk with medication and therapy. Although those are lifesaving measures, many clinicians, researchers and people who have lost loved ones to suicide agree that more is needed.
The challenge is that when it comes to firearms, broad policy approaches quickly become constitutionally complicated and politically polarizing. Research shows that limiting access to lethal means is one of the most promising approaches to save lives. It can involve erecting barriers on buildings and bridges to prevent people from jumping, as well as decreasing the number of pills someone can buy or be prescribed at once.
"That's the one that will save the most lives," said Nestadt, medical director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention. It may also be the most difficult to achieve. More than 28,000 people killed themselves with a gun last year, representing more than half of all suicide deaths in the U.S., according to preliminary federal data.
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