Suicide Prevention PolicyIntroduction
Our suicide prevention strategy was written by members of the Strathclyde community, for our community. The voices of those with lived and living experience are at its core.
This strategy is about staff and students coming together to think about how we can prevent suicide and support those with lived and living experience.
Our vision
Our vision is to ensure a compassionate community where everyone can contribute to achieving our suicide prevention mission and where suicide prevention is embedded into our daily activities.
To realise this vision, we will take a whole-university approach to create a compassionate, connected and safe environment for staff, students, and visitors. We have identified four areas of priority to achieve this:
- continuous improvement
- capacity building
- safety and support
- communication
The aims set out in our four priority areas are what we see as achievable and realistic within a five-year delivery plan. They take the key themes from our statement of purpose and translate them into a set of actions that will move us towards our goals. The delivery of these actions will be guided by an Implementation Action Plan, which will be developed using our principles of Time Space Compassion.
We will rely on a whole-university approach, delegating areas of responsibility to staff and students through the analysis of our implementation plan by our project board.
We will identify annual KPI’s and areas for key improvement, and develop checklists for all directorates so action can be owned at a local level. We have created a sustainable structure, and the actions of our plan will have clear lines of reporting.
Understanding suicide & self-harm
Significant health concerns
Suicide and self-harm thoughts and behaviours are globally recognised as significant public health concerns.
Every death by suicide represents a life lost with devastating consequences for families, friends, and communities.
Suicide
According to the Scottish Government, suicide is defined as a death resulting from an intentional self-inflicted act.
Self-harm
Self-harm is an intentional act of self-poisoning or self-injury, irrespective of the motivation or apparent purpose of the act and is an expression of emotional distress, according to NICE.
Importantly, suicide is preventable with the right support, and suicidal thoughts can be interrupted.
Statistics for Scotland
The National Records of Scotland (NRS) data has highlighted that:
- there were 792 deaths by suicide in Scotland in 2023
- Scotland has the highest suicide rate in the United Kingdom
- males are three times more likely to die by suicide in Scotland than females
- the rate of suicide mortality in Scotland’s most deprived areas was 2.5 times higher than in the least deprived areas
- suicide is the biggest cause of death in young adults in Scotland
- only 31% of people who died by suicide in Scotland in 2022 were in contact with mental health services in the 12 months prior to their death
- between 2011-2019, 77.3% of those who died by suicide in Scotland had contact with at least one of nine healthcare services
Factors in suicide
Suicide can rarely be reduced to a single factor. Research has highlighted that it is the combination of social, biological, and psychological variables which act to increase or decrease the risk of suicide.
A review of the past 50 years of research on risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviours summarised these into 16 broad categories. Some examples include:
- prior suicidal thoughts or behaviours
- lower socioeconomic status
- stressful life events like debt or financial worries, relationship or family breakdown, bullying
- hopelessness, anxiety, and depression
- feelings of being defeated and trapped
Theories of suicide
Researchers have also developed theories of suicide that provide us with a promising way to advance our knowledge. Therefore, it's important that any suicide prevention efforts also consider what these theories can add in terms of managing risk and understanding protective factors around suicide.
One of these theories, the Integrated Motivational Volitional (IMV) Model of Suicide is recognised within the Scottish Government’s Suicide Prevention Work and will also form one of the building blocks of suicide prevention at the University of Strathclyde. It's one of the most widely accepted theories of suicidal behaviour and has a strong evidence base.
Behaviour
The IMV model conceptualises suicide as a behaviour. This is important because it moves the focus away from viewing suicide as a symptom of a psychiatric condition. This shift in focus allows us to integrate existing biological, sociological and psychological knowledge at each stage of this pathway, illuminating potential targets for intervention, and helping us to understand the pathway from suicidal thoughts to behaviours.
The IMV recognises that suicide can affect anyone, but that it is socially patterned. This is the pre-motivational phase. It further argues that the experience of defeat or humiliation from which there is no escape (entrapment) is the key driver of suicidal thinking. This is the motivational phase. Finally, it provides information about the factors which might impact on whether a person will act on these thoughts. This is the volitional phase.
Theories likes the IMV are important because they allow researchers and practitioners to better understand the complex series of events which precede a person considering ending their own life, as well as the reasons why some individuals act on those thoughts and others do not. It helps us to not only advance our understanding of suicide risk but also provides us with opportunities to develop prevention and intervention efforts.
What this means for us
As practitioners within Higher Education, working with these theories means we can consider suicide prevention action beyond the moment in which it's being considered.
Our strategy for suicide prevention can also target those earlier phases by understanding why someone might begin to feel suicidal in the first place. The IMV model will be used to guide action.
Throughout this strategy, there will be specific references to key factors highlighted within this model. In particular, we feel it's important to understand why our staff and students might experience feelings of defeat and entrapment, and to develop strategies to reduce these feelings.
Our strategic work will draw on theory, research, lived and living experiences of suicidal thinking, behaviours, and loss, as well as our Strathclyde-specific knowledge, expertise, and practice.