The Jack Project - Mental Health First Aid Canada - Youth Course

Also see:

The Jack Windeler Memorial Fund

Last March, Jack Windeler, a first-year student at Queen’s University, died of suicide. To help others, Jack’s family and friends have raised $300,000+ for the Jack Windeler Memorial Fund, administered through Kids Help Phone. The focus is on youth mental health to

1. educate ‘emerging adults’ aged 16-20 as they transition from high school to college/university, and


2. to build a micro-site to counsel youth who are suffering.(supported by Kids Help Phone counsellors)

Jack’s high school (Ridley College) and university (Queen’s) are leading efforts by providing training in “Mental Health First Aid”, which teaches skills so you can help someone who is developing or experiencing a mental health problem. The goal is to broaden the approach across Canada.

Serum S100B: A Potential Biomarker for Suicidality in Adolescents?

Structure of the S100B protein. Based on PyMOL rendering of PDB 1b4c.

The abstract of a paper published online by PLoS One:

By Tatiana Falcone, Vincent Fazio, Catherine Lee, Barry Simon, Kathleen Franco, Nicola Marchi, and Damir Janigro*

Cleveland Clinic-Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America

Abstract

Studies have shown that patients suffering from depression or schizophrenia often have immunological alterations that can be detected in the blood. Others reported a possible link between inflammation, a microgliosis and the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in suicidal patients. Serum S100B is a marker of BBB function commonly used to study cerebrovascular wall function.

Methods

We measured levels of S100B in serum of 40 adolescents with acute psychosis, 24 adolescents with mood disorders and 20 healthy controls. Patients were diagnosed according to DSM-IV TR criteria. We evaluated suicidal ideation using the suicidality subscale of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale for Children (BPRS-C).

Results

Serum S100B levels were significantly higher (p<0.05) and correlated to severity of suicidal ideation in patients with psychosis or mood disorders, independent of psychiatric diagnosis. Patients with a BPRS-C suicidality subscores of 1–4 (low suicidality) had mean serum S100B values +/− SEM of 0.152+/−0.020 ng/mL (n = 34) compared to those with BPRS-C suicidality subscores of 5–7 (high suicidality) with a mean of 0.354+/−0.044 ng/mL (n = 30). This difference was statistically significant (p<0.05).

Conclusion

Our data support the use of S100B as an adjunctive biomarker to assess suicidal risk in patients with mood disorders or schizophrenia.


Citation: Falcone T, Fazio V, Lee C, Simon B, Franco K, et al. (2010) Serum S100B: A Potential Biomarker for Suicidality in Adolescents? PLoS ONE 5(6): e11089. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011089

Copyright: © 2010 Falcone et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

*E-mail: janigrd@ccf.org

To download the entire paper, please click here (PDF).

Also see:

Serum Biomarker May Help Predict Suicidality in Adolescents

Identifying Suicide Risks in Adolescents


Image courtesy of Emw. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

More than meds & beds

A letter to the editor published in yesterday's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

Re: "Suicide prevention: Time to get on with what works" by Stan Kutcher (Sept. 12).

Lack of treatment was acceptable in children’s mental health when we didn’t know the difference. However, it is totally unacceptable when the knowledge and proof of improved capability of sustaining a productive life is within a proper treatment plan, but lacks the dollars and commitment to provide it. All children deserve proper treatment without prejudice and stigma over their mental health issues!

It is time for the torture, neglect and abuse to stop. It is time for psychiatrists to stop delivering inadequate treatment proposals to parents and caregivers for their mentally ill children, because the province does not support the mental health needs of its young people, or perhaps, the hospital itself covers its inadequacy.

It is time for our government to invest more dollars into treatment facilities, with not just meds and beds, but with the educated, experienced staff and specialized treatment programs when prescribed. It is time for our children’s hospital to invest in a psychiatric unit and all existing mental health treatment programs, an art therapy program, music therapy program, "in house" psychologists and "on-call psychologists" when in-patient youth are in trauma episodes.

Actually, it is past time!

Sherry Beck Ramey, New Germany

The media must stop ignoring suicide

An article published in today's edition of The Windsor Star:

By Mark Henick, Special to The Windsor Star

On the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 25, a well-known former Fredericton city councilor walked into the Emergency Room with a lot on his mind. It is not known if he told them he was going to take his own life. Whatever happened in the ER, one thing was certain: He did not get rushed past the queue for immediate psychiatric care.

Instead, he ended up leaving, just walking right out the door. He called the police from in front of the hospital and, with phone in one hand and 16-gauge shotgun in the other, told them that he intended to kill himself.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Also see:

He was always looking for the good in people

Province Releases Report on Suicide, Attempted Suicide

A July 15th media release from the Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection:

A new report will better position government and its partners to help Nova Scotians at risk of attempting suicide.

The report, Suicide and Attempted Suicide in Nova Scotia, was released today, July 15. Its purpose is to help those who work in the areas of suicide prevention, intervention and support.

"Suicide is a very complex and sensitive public health issue," said Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's chief public health officer. "We need to talk about it more and better understand it to ensure the right programs and supports are in place to help Nova Scotians."

The report describes the conditions surrounding suicide and attempted suicide in Nova Scotia. The data is based on hospital and vital statistics records of suicides and suicide attempts from 1995 to 2004. It examines demographic factors, how people attempt suicide and complete suicide, and the types of health-care services used by Nova Scotians at risk.

"This report is a baseline we can use to evaluate future efforts on this important issue, and we've made good progress since 2004," said Dr. Strang. "We've developed a suicide prevention framework to reduce suicides and attempted suicides, we're doing additional research with the medical examiner's office, and we fund our community partners who work with Nova Scotians."

Dr. Stan Kutcher, Sun Life Financial chair in adolescent mental health, a partnership with the IWK Health Centre and Dalhousie University, said that even though suicide and suicide attempt rates are decreasing, and Nova Scotia is experiencing lower suicide rates than most Canadian provinces, there is more to be done.

"Improving care for people with mental disorders, enhancing the capability of health care and education professionals to identify people at risk, promoting overall good health and resiliency, and improving access to good mental health care, can all help further reduce Nova Scotia's suicide rates."

Highlights of the report include:

• the rate of hospitalizations for suicide attempts declined by 30 per cent over the 10-year period

• 55 per cent of those hospitalized were female

• Lower income was associated with higher rates of both hospitalizations for suicide attempts and suicide deaths

• The rate of suicide death declined from 11 to nine individuals per 100,000

• Nova Scotia's suicide rate was lower than the national average, nine out of 100,000 individuals compared to 11 out of 100,000

• 84 per cent of suicide deaths were male

• 55 per cent of suicide deaths were previously diagnosed with a mental disorder

The report is available online at www.gov.ns.ca/ohp/publications/Suicide_Report.pdf.

Media Contact:

Rachel Boomer
Health Promotion and Protection
902-424-5323
E-mail: rachel.boomer@gov.ns.ca

Also see:

Panel: Report says programs to prevent suicide working

Positive barrier

A letter to the editor published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

Thanks to Steve Snider, CEO of the Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission, for finally moving to install a barrier that will substantially increase the difficulty of completing suicide from the Macdonald Bridge. Since the impetus to complete suicide often waxes and wanes, actions that can delay the final act leading to suicide may deter the suicidal individual from acting and may increase the probability of choosing life instead. Indeed, many people who have decided not to complete suicide or who have survived a suicide attempt go on to live positive and productive lives.

Restriction of lethal means is one of the few public health measures that have been associated with decreasing suicide rates. Although method substitution is technically possible, research has not been able to demonstrate a clear pattern of this occurring when a bridge barrier is erected. So will putting up a barrier on the Macdonald Bridge save lives? Probably. Will it send a clear message of concern for this important health issue? Totally! Is it about time this happened? Absolutely!

As important as Mr. Snider’s role was in moving this agenda forward, the true heroes are Carol Cashen and a group of concerned citizens and mental health advocates. Ms. Cashen is a public health nurse and the mother of a young man who took his life by jumping from the Macdonald Bridge. With other members of the community, with the input of the Canadian Mental Health Association and with responsible reporting, Carol and the citizens of HRM were able to accomplish what the professionals and government were not able to do. They are the people we all have to be thankful to.

Dr. Stan Kutcher
Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health
Dalhousie and IWK Health Centre

Also see:

Macdonald bridge to get safety barrier

Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission to Install Barrier on the MacDonald Bridge (Teen Mental Health Blog)

Suicide risk in schizophrenia: learning from the past to change the future

The abstract of a review paper published in the March 16, 2007, edition of Annals of General Psychiatry:

By Maurizio Pompili, Xavier F. Amador, Paolo Girardi1, Jill Harkavy-Friedman, Martin Harrow, Kalman Kaplan, Michael Krausz, David Lester, Herbert Y Meltzer, Jiri Modestin, Lori P. Montross, Preben Bo Mortensen, Povl Munk-Jørgensen, Jimmi Nielsen, Merete Nordentoft, Pirjo Irmeli Saarinen, Sidney Zisook, Scott T Wilson and Roberto Tatarelli

Suicide is a major cause of death among patients with schizophrenia. Research indicates that at least 5–13% of [individuals living with schizophrenia] die by suicide, and it is likely that the higher end of range is the most accurate estimate. There is almost total agreement that [people living with schizophrenia] who [are] more likely to commit suicide [are] young, male, white and never married, with good premorbid function, post-psychotic depression and a history of substance abuse and suicide attempts. Hopelessness, social isolation, hospitalization, deteriorating health after a high level of premorbid functioning, recent loss or rejection, limited external support, and family stress or instability are risk factors for suicide in patients with schizophrenia. Suicidal [individuals with schizophrenia] usually fear further mental deterioration, and they experience either excessive treatment dependence or loss of faith in treatment. Awareness of illness has been reported as a major issue among suicidal patients with schizophrenia, yet some researchers argue that insight into the illness does not increase suicide risk.

Protective factors play also an important role in assessing suicide risk and should also be carefully evaluated. The neurobiological perspective offers a new approach for understanding self-destructive behavior among patients with schizophrenia and may improve the accuracy of screening [these individuals] for suicide. Although, there is general consensus on the risk factors, accurate knowledge as well as early recognition of patients at risk is still lacking in everyday clinical practice. Better knowledge may help clinicians and caretakers to implement preventive measures.

This review paper is the results of a joint effort between researchers in the field of suicide in schizophrenia. Each expert provided a brief essay on one specific aspect of the problem. This is the first attempt to present a consensus report as
well as the development of a set of guidelines for reducing suicide risk among schizophenia patients.

I have taken the liberty to edit the abstract to remove the word schizophrenic.

To read the entire paper, click here (PDF).

Thanks go to the Lancashire Care Library & Information Service for bringing this paper to my attention.

SSC NEWS RELEASE

Schizophrenia Society of Canada Supports The Violet Bloom Campaign to Raise Awareness About Suicide Prevention

WINNIPEG, JULY 31, 2008 - Chris Summerville, Interim CEO of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada (SSC), is pleased to announce the SSC’s involvement in, and support of, The Violet Bloom Campaign created and designed by Toronto film writer/director/producer Silvia Kovatchev. Dedicated toward raising awareness about suicide prevention, the Campaign is designed to support the work of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, along with Kids Help Phone, the National Network for Mental Health, and Active Minds in their efforts to better educate people about suicide prevention, and create the necessary educational materials used by these organizations in their work.

The highlight of the Campaign is the production of a film entitled: 2Violet, a story about the unusual relationship that Nona, an actress with schizophrenia, and her teenage daughter, Violet - an aspiring writer – have with Sal, an independent filmmaker. The story intertwines reality with the realities of mental illness and an artist’s imagination, which are often indistinguishable as they form an endless continuum. All these realities are driven by different forms of love.

The Violet Bloom Campaign will go through a variety of stages:

• raising awareness about suicide prevention and funds for the production of the upcoming feature film 2Violet
• production of the film
• screening the film at different festivals
• special screenings of the film at university campuses, schools, corporations, organizations, followed by Q&A sessions with cast, crew, representatives from the non-profit groups
• based on the film, creating educational materials that the non-profit groups can use in their work
• development of an ongoing discussion board on www.2Violet.com where people share their reasons to live and read why others think life IS worth living
  

“We are very pleased to be a part of this wonderful and much-needed campaign, says Mr. Summerville. “Unfortunately, there remains a deafening silence in our society when it comes to talking about suicide. The subject is definitely ‘taboo’ in many circles, so any opportunity we see to support a campaign that helps stop the suffering of those who are caught in this silence, we are delighted to do so.”

FACTS ABOUT SUICIDE

According to the World Health Organization, someone around the globe commits suicide every 40 seconds, while every three seconds, someone attempts to take their own life.

Some other important facts:

• Suicide rate is the highest among young adults (age 16-24)
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death in this age group
• In Canada, adolescent suicide has increased four-fold since the 1960s
• Approximately 3,500 Canadians take their own life each year, while another 50,000 attempt to do so
• Suicide rates are five to seven times higher for First Nations youth than for non-aboriginal
• While up to 40% of those living with schizophrenia will attempt suicide, 10% will die by suicide
• Depression is the most common mental health issue for those contemplating suicide.
  

Schizophrenia Society of Canada

The Schizophrenia Society of Canada began in 1979 and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for those affected by schizophrenia and psychosis through education, support programs, public policy and research. The Society works with 10 provincial societies in a federation model to: raise awareness and educate the public in order to reduce stigma and discrimination; support families and individuals; advocate for legislative change; and support research through the SSC Foundation and other independent efforts.


For further information, please contact:

Chris Summerville
Interim CEO
Schizophrenia Society of Canada
Tel: 905-415-2007
Email: Chris@schizophrenia.ca

Suicide: scientific overview and relevance for trauma care providers

An abstract from the journal Trauma, Vol. 9, No. 3, 213-220 (2007):

By Marie Crandall

Department of Surgery, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611, USA, mcrandall@northwestern.edu

The World Health Organization estimates that in the year 2000, approximately one million people died from suicide worldwide. Over the last 45 years, suicide rates have increased by 60%, with a particularly precipitous rise among young people. The underlying psychology of suicide is complex and individual. However, certain themes emerge from studying individuals who have attempted or completed suicides. This paper will provide an overview of suicide and suicidal behaviour as it relates to trauma practitioners, detailing risk factors, biologic and genetic interactions, and opportunities for prevention and treatment.

Key Words: trauma • injury • suicide • prevention • review • epidemiology