Neuropsychopharmacologia Hungarica : a Magyar Pszichofarmakológiai Egyesület lapja = official journal of the Hungarian Association of Psychopharmacology
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Neuropsychopharmacol Hung · Dec 2012
ReviewThe role of general practitioners in prevention of depression-related suicides.
Suicide is a ubiquitous phenomenon present in every country, and a function of the constellation of multiple risk and protective factors. The relatively low occurrence of attempted and completed suicide in the general community makes its research and consequentially prediction and prevention difficult, however, suicide events are common among psychiatric patients who contact their general practitioners some weeks or months before their suicidal act. ⋯ As over half of all suicide victims contact their general practitioners within four weeks before their death, primary care physicians play a key role in suicide prediction and prevention. Several large-scale community studies show that education of general practitioners and other medical professionals on the recognition and appropriate pharmacotherapy of depression, particularly in combination with psycho-social interventions and public education significantly improves identification and treatment of depression and consequentially reduces the rate of completed and attempted suicide in the areas served by trained doctors.