The American Psychiatric Association has issued its first guidelines on the assessment and treatment of patients with suicidal behaviors with the goal of helping to reduce an individual patient's suicide risk by giving psychiatrists tools to assess level of risk and to develop treatment strategies. The new guidelines’ recommendations are based on evidence from research literature and clinical consensus.

The expert work group responsible for developing the guidelines was chaired by Douglas G. Jacobs, MD. "The goal of the document is to facilitate the reduction of suicide risk. Its importance lies in its systematic approach to reviewing the literature and its uniform message about suicide assessment," he said. "Rather than representing 1 psychiatrist's point of view, as many textbooks do, this document speaks for the profession as a whole."

According to James H. Scully, Jr., MD, Medical Director of the Psychiatric Association, "As the [U.S.] Surgeon General's "National Strategy to Prevent Suicide" makes abundantly clear, suicide is a public health problem. The Strategy lays out a roadmap for addressing this problem with an integral component being professional education. Since psychiatrists are the main medical experts dealing with suicidal individuals, their training around this is essential. This new guideline is a major contribution to the field."

Jacobs added, "The new guideline represents our current state of knowledge. It reinforces our understanding that suicide is related specifically to mental illness and that recognition of and treatment for mental illness is our nation's best opportunity toward reducing the suicide rate. At the end of the day, this guideline is designed to be an up-to-date reference for psychiatrists managing suicidal patients so that they can save lives. That, after all, is our shared goal."

The development process for the guideline required more than 2 years and included review of over 34,000 articles published since the 1960s. With oversight from The Steering Committee on Practice Guidelines, early drafts of the document were reviewed by more than 100 experts and 8 professional organizations. A final draft was reviewed and approved by the American Psychiatric Association Assembly and Board of Trustees. The guideline has been published as a supplement to the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry and is available online at http://www.psych.org/psych_pract/treatg/pg/prac_guide.cfm