What is this study?
The death of patients by suicide can have profound effects on the personal and professional life of many psychiatrists. Patient suicide can have an influence on staff recruitment and retention, quality of professional life, patient care and professional well-being. Currently there is limited and idiosyncratic support for clinicians who experience patient suicide. This important issue has not been well examined in Ireland. The purpose of this study is to investigate how patient suicide affects the emotional well-being and clinical practice of psychiatrists in Ireland and to examine how best to support psychiatrists in their practice in relation to deaths of patients by suicide.
Project Aims
- • How patient suicide affects the emotional well-being and clinical practice of psychiatrists.
- • The resources that psychiatrists would find helpful before and after the suicide of a patient.
- • Psychiatrists’ attitudes to suicide and suicide prevention, and their perceptions of institutional and societal pressures.
Personnel Involved
National Suicide Research Foundation: Dr Paul Corcoran, Dr Clíodhna O’Brien.
National Office for Suicide Prevention: Prof. Philip Dodd.
College of Psychiatrists of Ireland: Dr Aoibhinn Lynch, Assoc. Prof. Anne Doherty