Effekten av ulike typer intervensjon ved selvmordsfare : Abstract

Abstract

Patients who deliberately injure themselves that which we call deliberate self harm have an increased risk for taking their own lives. This group of patients has been the focus of a number of professional studies in recent years. The objective of this study is to provide an overview of the type of intervention utilised on patients attempting suicide and which has emerged as effective in reducing the level of suicidal behaviour and suicide itself. The study is a survey of literature covering the subject. The point of commencement was an article review compiled by Hawton and associates in 1999 covering different types of intervention on patients who had deliberately harmed themselves.Following a supplementary systematic search for subsequent studies, 16 new articles were found. The criteria for inclusion in the study were that these should be randomised controlled studies of patients who had at least one previous incident of self-inflicted injury. The databases used included Pubmed/Medline and the Cochrane Library. The results of the study suggest that those methods which appear to have been most effective in cases of deliberate self harm were dialectic behaviour therapy and psycho-dynamically oriented treatment in oriented partial hospitalization for patients with borderline personality disorder. Few of the studies revealed statistically significant treatment effects. The main reason for this is that the majority of studies had a low number of participants. Randomised controlled studies are difficult to organise and demand considerable resources in the form expertise, participation and finance. In addition, attempts at suicide are relatively infrequent necessitating a large number of patients in order to attain statistically significant results.