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Joshua Lutz
Professor Massey
English 1101
November 25, 2014

Suicide Prevention: A Global Effort

Suicide is a world-wide pandemic that is stealing the lives of many individuals all around
the globe. Every single year, just about an estimated 873,000 people around the world are dying
by suicide (Mental Health, 5). That is roughly around the same amount of people that are living
today in the entire state of South Dakota. One thing that makes this situation worse is that the
already high rate of suicides per year keeps consistently growing and growing non-stop. Solely
in the United States, one citizen is dead every 12.9 minutes, and is another victim to suicide. This
International disaster needs to be stopped and may be stopped with the strong will and
determination of the people who recognize this ugly situation. Most countries in the world have
recognized suicide as a serious problem that can be ended all together with the right treatment,
and are working toward having a complete halt to this issue. Suicide needs to be stopped because
it is a permanent solution to temporary problems. Suicides can usually be detected much in
advance, as the person might show qualities of depression or become an obvious victim of self
harm or other disorders. Suicide must be put to an end, through strong wills of people that have
the resources and the ability to help those who need it.

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This photo above is a great way every day people can become aware and help the cause
of suicide prevention. This is showing a suicide prevention walk, where people raise awareness
of how serious the growing problem of suicide is becoming. People may walk in honor of loved
ones who have passed away by suicide or just chose to help spread the recognition of suicides.
The organization, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is the most popular and most
effective foundation, when it comes to making more people knowledgeable about the topic of
suicide and finding a solution through research to end suicide altogether. People all around the
country should take part in events like these where thousands of people gather to spread
consciousness to the subject at hand and even raise money to help fund projects to find a total

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solution that could wipe out suicide all together or find what could be the cure to this global
travesty.
First of all, Suicide is something that affects not only your city or country, but the society
of the entire world. Canada has acted out on suicide prevention in 2014, recognizing that the
country had bad practices when it came to psychiatric offices including possible one year waiting
periods for appointments. In the same country, three out of four children with a mental illness
will never be able to receive their proper treatment and 23 percent of deaths among kids age 1519 were by suicide (Moat, 1). The Right By You campaign asks the Canadian federal
government to invest $100 million over four years for a national suicide prevention fund which
demands that the countries government make mental health-related services, treatment and
support available to all youth when it is needed. The Right By You campaign is trying to fix that,
with eventually providing mental healthcare to 100 percent of the youth that need it before it is
too late to act upon it.
Nevertheless, suicide is not only happening in the homes of too many Americans, but
they are also happening on Army bases and camps. Mental health issues have never had as much
attention on them as they do now, and are seen as critical by both military and civilian leaders.
The most shocking of these issues is the growing number of successfully achieved suicides
among members of the USA military. The suicide rate has gone all the way up to 10.3 suicides
per 100,000, and approximately 40 percent of Reserve/National Guard members who completed
suicide never deployed (Larry, 2). There is a new and innovative treatment to managing suicidal
patients with a model based on Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. There is growing research
that collaborative assessment and management of suicidality programs may severely impact
suicidal tendencies and overall distress, increase hope, and have a positive impact on non-mental

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health utilization. There is also growing evidence that shows that the gay, bisexual, and lesbian
community are three to five times more likely to attempt to commit suicide than the rest of the
heterosexual population.
Moreover, the suicide rates in America have been constantly increasing over the past
decade in civilian and military populations, with an explicitly large increase in middle-aged
adults (Ray-Bryne, 2) Suicide is very uncommon, so rare, that it has been very hard to discover
and find the factors that increase risk of suicide. The easiest and most obvious way to predict
most suicides are a history of suicide attempts for any person, although identifiable risk factors
also may not translate to a completed suicide. Suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, and suicides
are heavily associated with mental disorders and mood, anxiety, psychotic, and substance
disorders. Depression contributes the most strongly to suicide attempts because it cause the
person to feel a lack of hope and gives them feelings of strong loneliness. These emotional and
cognitive factors are most likely the product of not just mental disorder-associated distress, but
also developmental experiences that had come before. Although medicine is an extremely large
part of all psychiatric treatments, there is a very limited randomized controlled trial.
Antidepressants and medication like it are also beneficial and are unlikely to cause any harm to
young adults, teens, and children. Those antidepressants reduce suicide risk in adults, and the use
of mood stabilizers in illness is broadly associated with suicide reduction. Many risk factors of
suicide have been identified as important in previous research studies, but havent found their
way into the standard clinical evaluation.
In addition, a university-wide suicide prevention program has concluded that suicide has
steadily become the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds in the United States of
America (Casstevens, 2). This same research has proven that people within the same age group

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of 15-24 attempt from 100-200 suicides for each suicide completed. Doctors and mental health
providers such as psychiatrists may think they are obligated to create involuntary commitment
proceedings if their patient seem to be at risk of being a danger to others or to themselves but are
not actively seeking help. When suicidal thoughts and actions are caused by stress and go away
with the lessening of it, stress management tools such as drugs and other resources may then be
offered to a patient needing it. This would cause the feeling to want to commit suicide to go
away with some time. When many suicidal impulses are due to a continuous situation, it is best
to have in-patient therapeutic interventions. Most commonly, people usually fell the most
suicidal when they are experiencing feelings of extreme isolation, or when their basic need for
love is not met, and they have no hope at all that it may improve.
Furthermore, in the United States of America it has seemed that suicide has become
extremely unavoidable as a public health challenge and is the tenth leading cause of all deaths.
Many countries that have implemented suicide prevention strategies have shown drastic
decreases, such as Finland, where there has been an extreme decrease of 30 percent in all
suicides in the past two decades (Caine, 3). The WHO Suicide Prevention of Suicidal Behaviors
conducted a study in which they had randomized controlled trial reports and assumed that postER interventions with attempters reduced subsequent suicides. If a great amount of attention and
strongly willed commitment was brought to the cause of reducing suicide by concentrating on
socially important pre-suicidal conditions and behaviors that have public health significance,
then suicide may be brought to a complete stop. At the individual level, suicide can only be
ended steadily, by intervening in a timely and convenient fashion before someone has reached
their edge of the cliff. Overall, research has proved that improved surveillance on people who

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are depressed or suicidal can largely reduce the rate of both mortality of suicide and attempted
suicide.
In fact, between the years of 1950 to 1995, the world wide rate of suicide for both men
and women combined skyrocketed by a total of 60 percent, and suicide is the second leading
cause of death in Europe only after traffic accidents in the group aged 15-35 (Mental Health, 4).
Some risk factors that may lead to people becoming suicidal are: the loss of a loved one or other
tragic events, previous family history of suicide, interpersonal conflict, violence and feelings of
hopelessness, social isolation and psychiatric factors like depression or other mental disorders.
Some strategies for suicide prevention are improving diagnostic procedures and the treatment
following it, and increasing the knowledge through public education about mental illness and
how it may be recognized at an early stage. Suicide prevention centers have been opened all
across Europe, providing support with: telephone crisis lines, training for front-line workers, and
general practitioners, support for survivors, undertaking research and campaigning for raising
public awareness to suicide.
Finally, suicide is a global pandemic that needs to be stopped by the people who have the
devotion and care to help end suicide. Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems,
and should not be seen as acceptable or normal by anyone. The fact that people every day who
struggle from mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and mood disorders feel the need to end
their life because they have no hope things will get better needs to be put to a complete halt. If
awareness is successfully brought to the topic of how big an issue suicide has really become,
then this ugly death may be prevented completely and millions of lives could potentially be
saved.

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Bibliography
Caine, Eric D., Ed Schneider, Marie Fallon, Tricia Valasek, Jennifer Pomeranz. Suicide
Prevention is a Winnable Battle American Journal of Public Health (2012) 102.1. Web.
October 23, 2014.
Casstevens, W.J. Reflections on Suicide Prevention from a Choice Theory Perspective
International Journal of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy (2013). 33.1. Web.
November 5, 2014.
James, C. Larry. Introduction to Special Section on Suicide Prevention Military Psychology
(2012) 24.6. Web. November 5, 2014.
Moat, Jeff. Rallying Canadians in Support of Youth Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
Psynopsis: Canadas Psychology. Spring 2014. Print. November 5, 2014.
Ray-Bryne, Peter. Suicide: The Long and Winding Road from Research to Practice Depression
and Anxiety (2013) 30.10. Web. November 5, 2014.
Mental Health: Facing the Challenges, Building Solutions. Offices of Mental Health
Practitioners, 2005. Book. November 5, 2014.