JS02-03 - Suicidology and suicide prevention

Abstract

Suicide is in Austria one of the most causes of death in the age group 15–54. World wide every year 1.000.000 of people die by suicide, in Europe the number of total suicide per year is 40.000, approxymately 13.500 young man and women aged 15–24 years die by suicide. Suicidology is a science which automatically leads to active work in prevention. Preventive strategies of the last two decades results in a marked decrease of Suicide rates in most countries of the world. However different preventive concepts seems to show similar results in reducing suicide rates. So it is not easy to identify the right way in suicide prevention. We analyzed the publications of the last years and tried to find out what are the characteristics approaches of the the countries with a successful suicide prevention. It seems that countries which istitutionalized suicide prevention by creating institutes on an university level had a good fundament for research and applied research is the best groundwork for establishing preventive projects. Applied research is as well the best ground base for establishing educational programs which are the start in all well functioning national suicide prevention programs.