According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Suicide was responsible for 48,824 deaths in 2024. The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2024, an estimated 14.3 million adults seriously thought about suicide, 4.6 million planned a suicide attempt, and 2.2 million attempted suicide.”
The staggering numbers are reflective of the catastrophic impact that mental health has in the United States. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reported that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, with a 1.5-fold increase in suicide attempts between 2023 and 2024. It is estimated that 1 in every 5 adults in the United States live with mental illness, placing them at higher risk for suicide.
Are Healthcare Workers Prepared to Respond to Mental Health Crises?
Despite the prevalence of mental illness and the alarmingly high rate of suicide attempts and suicide deaths, many healthcare workers express low confidence in managing these conditions outside of psychiatric settings. No facet of medical care is truly insulated from encountering these issues, and the likelihood of coming across them will increase as mental health disorders become more pervasive. Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Recent data shows that the United States is in a mental health crisis, experienced by people of all ages—but especially among young people. This trend was observed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but has been worsened by pandemic-related factors.”
It is estimated that approximately one-third of patients who visit general hospitals have a mental disorder (van Niekerk DPhil, 2022). The stressful state of being ill, injured, and/or hospitalized can potentiate and exacerbate mental illness. The question then becomes: are healthcare workers outside of a psychiatric setting equipped to manage the inevitable encounter with mental illness? While most healthcare workers receive at least some instruction in mental health disorders, they generally lack in-depth training that would equip them with the confidence to manage those patients’ care more adeptly.
How Continuing Education Supports Suicide Prevention in Healthcare
Suicide is widespread and a major public concern. So, how do we, as medical professionals, mitigate the societal epidemic of suicide? The answer is multifaceted, but it starts with education. Across all avenues of care, healthcare workers can pursue continuing education to recognize warning signs of suicide and mental health crises and learn appropriate screening tools and interventions. Continuing education aims to improve healthcare workers’ detection skills by helping them identify subtle cues, apply validated tests to assess risk factors associated with higher self-harm rates, and develop action and crisis response plans with patients. Other continuing education opportunities allow healthcare workers to practice discussing firearm safety, removing dangerous items at home, and care coordination to connect patients quickly with psychiatric specialists or community helplines. Continuing education related to suicide can help reduce clinician discomfort and fear when discussing suicide.
Healthcare workers have professional and ethical responsibilities to promote the safety of the individual they serve and to maintain competence in health and human service delivery. Continuing education plays an essential role in empowering healthcare workers with the skills to identify warning signs of suicide and mental health crises, to assess risk astutely, and to apply compassionate intervention.
Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Continuing Education for Healthcare Professionals
For healthcare workers to recognize warning signs of suicide and mental health crises, it would be advantageous for them to be equipped with a robust knowledge of mental health disorders. To learn more about suicide prevention, CareerSmart® offers an online course, “Suicide Prevention: Recognizing and Assessing,” that provides comprehensive information regarding populations most at risk for suicide and delves into strategies to prevent suicide risks before a crisis occurs. Additionally, the CareerSmart® online course on “Common Mental Health Disorders Outside the Psychiatric Setting” provides in-depth information to equip healthcare workers with the ability to identify signs and symptoms of common mental health disorders encountered in non-psychiatric settings, learn the factors that contribute to mental health conditions, and understand the importance of maintaining professional boundaries and implementing self-care strategies for healthcare providers managing mental health disorders.
References:
The Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders in General Hospital Inpatients: A Systematic Umbrella Review in the Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
Volume 63, Issue 6, November–December 2022, Pages 567-578
By Maike van Niekerk DPhil a ∗, Jane Walker PhD a ∗, Harriet Hobbs MSc a, Nicholas Magill PhD b, Mark Toynbee DPhil a, Ben Steward MSc a, Eli Harriss MSc c, Michael Sharpe MD a. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667296022002671
