Suicide prevention metrics are hard to track

[Tintypographer]

More people in crisis doesn’t mean more calls to suicide hotlines. Why the disconnect?

The lifeline is most ubiquitous symbol of suicide prevention, but only a small fraction of suicidal people actually call.

whyy.org

One can say that it is difficult to treat what is not understood. Medicine has certainly come a long way from belief in bad blood or bad air. The data shows that global health has a gap between the increasing suicide statistics and an understanding of who is suicidal and how they deal with the feelings.


The data from NIMH shoes that rates are increasing.

The difficult thing for the providers of mental health care whether the services are suicide hotlines or emergency medicine or therapy/psychological intervention is that the numbers of people feeling symptoms of depression far outweigh the cases that actually appear to exist.

John Draper, head of lifeline says that their survey conducted online through advertisements within Google searches related to suicide that some of their findings were

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Mental Health America (MHA) today released data from the online screening tool, MHAscreening.org, showing that the number of people reporting signs of anxiety and depression since the start of the pandemic hit an all-time high in September. The new data accompanies the release of the annual State of Mental Health in America report, showing that nationwide, 19% (47.1 million) of people in the U.S. are living with a mental health condition, a 1.5 million increase over last year's report. Vermont moved to the No. 1 spot, ahead of Pennsylvania, and Nevada remained last at No. 51.

"As the pandemic relentlessly persists, we are seeing the highest levels of anxiety and depression reported since the pandemic hit the U.S. in March," said Paul Gionfriddo, president and CEO of MHA. "This is a troubling trend being fueled by loneliness and isolation. We are also seeing alarming numbers of children reporting thoughts of suicide and self-harm. We already knew that not enough was being done to support people living with mental illness, but the State of Mental Health in America report confirms the trend that mental health in the U.S. continues to get worse. Many states are ill-prepared to handle this crisis and policymakers at every level of government need to act immediately."

But the data from the suicide hotline surveys show that people, particularly young people most at risk are not inclined to call a mental health crisis line and would prefer to interact virtually.

I believe one correlation between the visits to sanctioned suicide forums and lack of calls to the hotline system illustrates that the gap is derived from a fundamental lack of understanding of what people dealing with suicidal ideation need for support vs what the mental health institution provides. Although correlation is not causation, we have to admit at some point that simply throwing money and effort at call centers and suggesting that "things will be ok if you just think good thoughts" or "you need therapy" is not slowing the trend in mental health disorders including suicidal ideation.

 

[Nightmare Painting]

Suicide prevention is nothing more than lip service. Anyone that is truly suicidal is not going to waste their time listening to empty words from people that don't really give a fuck.

Society offers little to no tangible or practical forms of relief even for the disadvantaged who have fixable problems much less for those who have mental wounds that last a lifetime.

I agree that neurotypicals have profound cognitive dissonance when it comes to what they consider to be helpful versus what actually is helpful for people with severe mental problems.

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

Its way more difficult to account for things that DIDN'T happen, ie: were prevented, than to count things that DID happen. People take advantage of this all the time.