Suicide prevention for youth - a mental health awareness program: lessons learned from the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) intervention study

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Abstract

Background

The Awareness program was designed as a part of the EU-funded Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) intervention study to promote mental health of adolescents in 11 European countries by helping them to develop problem-solving skills and encouraging them to self-recognize the need for help as well as how to help peers in need.

Methods

For this descriptive study all coordinators of the SEYLE Awareness program answered an open-ended evaluation questionnaire at the end of the project implementation. Their answers were synthesized and analyzed and are presented here.

Results

The results show that the program cultivated peer understanding and support. Adolescents not only learned about mental health by participating in the Awareness program, but the majority of them also greatly enjoyed the experience.

Conclusions

Recommendations for enhancing the successes of mental health awareness programs are presented. Help and cooperation from schools, teachers, local politicians and other stakeholders will lead to more efficacious future programs.

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Most cited references 7

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Risk factors for suicide and attempted suicide among young people.

A Beautrais (2000)

Suicide rates in young people have increased during the past three decades, particularly among young males, and there is increasing public and policy concern about the issue of youth suicide in Australia and New Zealand. This paper summarises current knowledge about risk factors for suicide and suicide attempts in young people. Evidence about risk factors for suicidal behaviour in young people was gathered by review of relevant English language articles and other papers, published since the mid-1980s. The international literature yields a generally consistent account of the risk factors and life processes that lead to youth suicide and suicide attempts. Risk factor domains which may contribute to suicidal behaviour include: social and educational disadvantage; childhood and family adversity; psychopathology; individual and personal vulnerabilities; exposure to stressful life events and circumstances; and social, cultural and contextual factors. Frequently, suicidal behaviours in young people appear to be a consequence of adverse life sequences in which multiple risk factors from these domains combine to increase risk of suicidal behaviour. Current research evidence suggests that the strongest risk factors for youth suicide are mental disorders (in particular, affective disorders, substance use disorders and antisocial behaviours) and a history of psychopathology, indicating that priorities for intervening to reduce youth suicidal behaviours lie with interventions focused upon the improved recognition, treatment and management of young people with mental disorders.

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Best Practice Elements of Multilevel Suicide Prevention Strategies

Christina M van der Feltz-Cornelis, Marco Sarchiapone, Vita Poštuvan … (2011)

Background: Evidence-based best practices for incorporation into an optimal multilevel intervention for suicide prevention should be identifiable in the literature. Aims: To identify effective interventions for the prevention of suicidal behavior. Methods: Review of systematic reviews found in the Pubmed, Cochrane, and DARE databases. Steps include risk-of-bias assessment, data extraction, summarization of best practices, and identification of synergistic potentials of such practices in multilevel approaches. Results: Six relevant systematic reviews were found. Best practices identified as effective were as follows: training general practitioners (GPs) to recognize and treat depression and suicidality, improving accessibility of care for at-risk people, and restricting access to means of suicide. Although no outcomes were reported for multilevel interventions or for synergistic effects of multiple interventions applied together, indirect support was found for possible synergies in particular combinations of interventions within multilevel strategies. Conclusions: A number of evidence-based best practices for the prevention of suicide and suicide attempts were identified. Research is needed on the nature and extent of potential synergistic effects of various preventive activities within multilevel interventions.

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Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE): a randomized controlled trial

Danuta Wasserman, Vladimir Carli, Camilla Wasserman … (2010)

Background There have been only a few reports illustrating the moderate effectiveness of suicide-preventive interventions in reducing suicidal behavior, and, in most of those studies, the target populations were primarily adults, whereas few focused on adolescents. Essentially, there have been no randomized controlled studies comparing the efficacy, cost-effectiveness and cultural adaptability of suicide-prevention strategies in schools. There is also a lack of information on whether suicide-preventive interventions can, in addition to preventing suicide, reduce risk behaviors and promote healthier ones as well as improve young people's mental health. The aim of the SEYLE project, which is funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Health Program, is to address these issues by collecting baseline and follow-up data on health and well-being among European adolescents and compiling an epidemiological database; testing, in a randomized controlled trial, three different suicide-preventive interventions; evaluating the outcome of each intervention in comparison with a control group from a multidisciplinary perspective; as well as recommending culturally adjusted models for promoting mental health and preventing suicidal behaviors. Methods and design The study comprises 11,000 adolescents emitted from randomized schools in 11 European countries: Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and Spain, with Sweden serving as the scientific coordinating center. Each country performs three active interventions and one minimal intervention as a control group. The active interventions include gatekeeper training (QPR), awareness training on mental health promotion for adolescents, and screening for at-risk adolescents by health professionals. Structured questionnaires are utilized at baseline, 3- and 12-month follow-ups in order to assess changes. Discussion Although it has been reported that suicide-preventive interventions can be effective in decreasing suicidal behavior, well-documented and randomized studies are lacking. The effects of such interventions in terms of combating unhealthy lifestyles in young people, which often characterize suicidal individuals, have never been reported. We know that unhealthy and risk-taking behaviors are detrimental to individuals' current and future health. It is, therefore, crucial to test well-designed, longitudinal mental health-promoting and suicide-preventive interventions by evaluating the implications of such activities for reducing unhealthy and risk behaviors while concurrently promoting healthy ones. Trial registration The German Clinical Trials Register, DRKS00000214.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Public Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Public Health

Title: BMC Public Health

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2458

Publication date Collection: 2012

Publication date (Electronic): 12 September 2012

Volume: 12

Page: 776

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University-New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA

[2 ]Department of Health Sciences, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy

[3 ]Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

[4 ]National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental III-Health (NASP), Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

[5 ]WHO Collaborating Center for Research, Methods Development and Training in Suicide Prevention, Stockholm, Sweden

[6 ]Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Oviedo; Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Oviedo, Spain

[7 ]Feinberg Child Study Centre, Schneider Children’s Medical Centre, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

[8 ]Vadaskert Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital, Budapest, Hungary

[9 ]Department of Developmental and Clinical Child Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

[10 ]Department of Clinical Psychology, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

[11 ]Section for Disorders of Personality Development, Clinic of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Centre of Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

[12 ]Research Division for Mental Health, University for Medical Information Technology (UMIT), Hall, Tyrol, Austria

[13 ]Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, University Medical Centre, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France

[14 ]National Suicide Research Foundation, Cork, Ireland

[15 ]Estonian-Swedish Mental Health & Suicidology Institute, Centre for Behavioural Sciences, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

[16 ]Department of Population Studies, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

[17 ]Slovene Center for Suicide Research, Andrej Marušič Institute, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia

Article

Publisher ID: 1471-2458-12-776

DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-776

PMC ID: 3584983

PubMed ID: 22971152

SO-VID: 9ef52220-c62b-4d0b-965c-830d54802b93

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Suicide prevention for youth - a mental health awareness program: lessons learned from the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) intervention study

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Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

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Hogrefe: SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Most cited references 7

Risk factors for suicide and attempted suicide among young people.

Best Practice Elements of Multilevel Suicide Prevention Strategies

Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE): a randomized controlled trial

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