Supportive relationships and community connectedness help to protect people at risk from suicide. Programs that foster connections can include group therapy and family psychoeducation.
Gatekeeper training can help family members, friends and authority figures (like school counselors, police officers and teachers) recognize warning signs and connect individuals to care. Suicide screening and teaching warning signs can also be helpful.
1. Know the Warning Signs
While suicide isn’t entirely preventable, knowing the warning signs can help. These are behaviors that can indicate someone may be at risk of hurting themselves or taking their own life:
Red flags include mood changes, acting anxious and agitated, withdrawn or isolating themselves, research or preparation with lethal means (like guns, pills), giving away cherished possessions, writing a will, planning a death, or reckless behavior that puts them in danger.
People who have been abused or whose biological family members have committed suicide are at an increased risk of doing the same. Other risk factors include severe financial stressors, legal issues, loss of a loved one, drug abuse and depression. Mental health treatment like psychotherapy or psychiatric medications can decrease suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
2. Be Proactive
While suicide isn’t entirely preventable, proactive steps can reduce the risk of it happening. This includes promoting and encouraging the use of services for people who are at risk for suicide. It also involves identifying and helping to connect those who are struggling with their mental health needs, such as through psychotherapy apps or telehealth conferencing.
One of the best ways to do this is through a program that trains people who have routine contact with other people, such as school staff or hospital emergency department personnel (also known as “gatekeepers”) to recognize and respond to people experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. This is known as universal intervention. Other examples of proactive interventions include gatekeeper training, suicide screening and teaching warning signs. See the Indicated and Universal Intervention pages.
3. Be There for Your Loved Ones
When someone you care about talks about suicide, it’s important to take it seriously. Especially if their talk is new or seems related to a painful event, loss, or change.
Help them find and connect with a mental health professional, like a psychotherapist or counselor. Research shows that psychotherapy, such as dialectical behavior therapy, can reduce suicidal thoughts and improve mental wellness and resiliency.
Encourage your loved one to develop what’s known as a crisis plan with their mental health provider, and help them work through any issues that may come up during the process. You can also help them reduce access to lethal means by storing medications safely and removing firearms from their home, if possible. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has a template you can use to help your loved one create a safety plan.
4. Reduce Access to Lethal Means
Oftentimes, a person’s suicide method plays a large role in whether they live or die. For example, a gun in the home is more deadly than a pill bottle on the nightstand.
The lethality of a method also depends on the ability to abort mid-attempt. Methods that allow for quick and safe interruption-such as overdose, hanging/suffocation, or CO poisoning-provide a window of opportunity for intervention.
Counseling people at risk and their families about reducing access to lethal means has been found to reduce suicides. This includes instituting means restriction counseling policies in health care settings, providing education to families of at-risk individuals about safely storing medications and guns, and distributing gun safety locks or making it easier for people to get help by changing medication packaging or installing barriers on bridges.
5. Get Help
Studies show that support from family, friends, spiritual advisors, and mental health professionals is protective against suicide. The theory behind this is that connectedness acts as a buffer against hopelessness, psychological pain and the escalation of thoughts to action.
Encourage anyone who confides in you to seek help. Suggest they see a mental health professional to help identify risk factors and get them treatment, especially for depression.
Ask about their feelings and watch for dramatic changes in behavior such as skipping classes, getting bad grades, acting irritable or aggressively, sleep problems, sudden weight loss or gain, erratic eating habits and a new interest in guns, pills or other lethal means. Work with them to create a personal safety plan, including ways to identify if they’re in crisis and people and resources to call or contact.