Table E.4.12 Acute management of suicidal behaviour
* High risk or high changeability or low assessment confidence: Re-assess within 24 hours
• Ensure the patient is in an appropriately safe and secure environment
• Organise re-assessment within 24 hours
• Organise ongoing management and close monitoring
• Make contingency plans for rapid re-assessment if distress or symptoms escalate.
Often suicide risk cannot be excluded definitively and an estimation of the level of risk is needed. Table E.4.11 presents a summary of factors that need to be considered for categorizing patients as being at high, medium, low or no foreseeable risk of suicide (NSW Department of Health, 2004a). Special attention has to be paid to the changeability of risk (e.g., suicide risk is not static, it varies due to changes in mental state, relationships or stressors) and to the confidence on the assessment. Low assessment confidence can be attributed to (1) factors within the person (e.g., mental illness, the patient is intoxicated); (2) factors within the social environment (e.g., a divorce with a custody battle causing one parent to remain silent about problems), or (3) factors within the assessment procedure (e.g., incomplete assessment, the patient refuses to give information) (NSW Department of Health, 2004a).