Hat Day: Jo Robinson—New approaches to suicide prevention in young people
Jo began by summarizing statistics on youth suicide. About 24% of young people have thought about suicide in the past year, 5-10% have made a suicide attempt, and in 2012 there were 324 deaths of young people due to suicide.
Jo spoke about three research projects on suicide. The first involved a study of what suicide research is being done in Australia and how this compares to the priorities of stakeholders. It was found that very little research is done on interventions to prevent suicide, even though this is the highest priority of stakeholders. What little research has been done was supported by Australian Rotary Health.
The second project involved a new internet intervention called Reframe-IT. This is designed to give cognitive-behaviour therapy to high school students who have been having thoughts of suicide. The use of the program is monitored by a therapist. After using the program, it was found that suicidal thoughts, depression and feelings of hopelessness declined. While some people are wary about raising the issue of suicide with young people, because “it might put the idea in their head”, so support was found for this.
The third project explored the potential use of social media in suicide prevention. It was concluded that Facebook in particular had potential in this regard. Work is underway to develop key messages about seeking help for suicidal thoughts that can be disseminated by Facebook.