Psychological Interventions for Patients with Suicidal Risk: ASystematic Review

Abstract

Suicide is a major public health problem; it is a complex phenomenon, which involves psychological, social, biological and environmental factors. Suicide behavior may include suicidal ideation, a suicidal plan, the means to attempt suicide and suicide itself. This article consisted of a systematic review on psychological interventions with empirical support for adult patients (18 to 65 years old) with suicidal risk, in the period from 2012 to 2016. 13 clinical randomized controlled trials were found, according to inclusion criteria. None of them was developed in Ibero-America; most of them evaluated cognitive-behavioral strategies and only 3 of them couldn’t prove the efficacy of the studied intervention. Even though these studies have dealt with different populations, all of them have evaluated suicidal ideation, but with different measurement tools (differing in the amount of specific items and in the condition). It would be desirable to perform more clinical trials of this nature, but with lower risk of bias, more homogeneous outcome measurements and longer follow-up.