The second article provides a view of how consumers perceive the suicide intervention process. These consumers have also experienced suicide interventions, meaning they were suicidal patients before. Their satisfaction was considered in this study. Aoun and Johnson conducted this study to determine what the consumers think on how suicide interventions have somehow resolved the phenomenon of suicide. Assessing the satisfaction of the consumers in a suicide intervention is not easy. Aoun and Johnson did a 2-year suicide intervention program.
There were a total of 208 patients who has undergone suicide intervention during the 2-year intervention. They gave out survey forms to their patients who had received help but not everyone replied. They found out that some of their previous patients do not have the problems they have had when they subjected their selves on the intervention. Some, though, do not mind it as a major problem in their life now. Unfortunately, there are still a fraction of the consumers who has attempted to repeat suicide even after the intervention.
While more than half of the respondents say that they’ve improved their ability to handle problems after the intervention, there were some who believed that they’ve have gotten worse after the intervention. More than half think that the counselor has really helped them, while about 30% think that the counselors have contributed minimally. Majority, though, say that they’ve had a good relationship with their counselors. The study shows that clients appreciate the results of the suicide intervention.
The clients were now able to cope up with their problems without having any suicidal tendencies. There were clients who have expressed their dissatisfaction stating that they were not helped by the intervention. What made the intervention unsatisfactory must be answered to help the suicide intervention facilities improve. It is important to assess the satisfaction of the clients because from these, we could evaluate ourselves as health professionals. In this study, it was said that the clients were happy because the counselor was available, caring, and giving them hope.
Some clients complain that about the absence of their counselors and that, it is somehow difficult to open up their problems to someone. Maybe, the nurses should address these complains. The nurses should always be available for their patients. Also, the nurses must make the patient feel comfortable with him/her. The third article is from Burns and his teammates. This article was chosen because it deals with the suicidal attempts of adolescents which are an alarming issue. They made a two-year follow up study that describes the use of mental ward facilities to help adolescents who tried to harm their selves.
In their study, they tried to find factors that affect compliance with the treatment and the functional relationship of this compliance with tendencies of suicide. They’ve had 85 patients whose age ranges from 13 to 18. These patients were evaluated to see if they experience mental impairment. Every 6 months in two years, they assess the participation of the patient with the treatment. They see if the patients were being religious to their medication and if they cooperate with their counselors. They also assessed the attitudes of the patients towards the treatment and their post-treatment suicidal tendencies.
They found out that those patients who where diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorder, with anxiety disorder and who are into drugs are less compliant with treatments. They also found that those patients who comply with the treatments will no longer commit suicide in the future. That means compliance with the treatment has no relationship with the suicidal tendencies of a patient, especially that of an adolescent. Furthermore, they’ve found out that the parents of those adolescents help them to comply with the treatments.
They have also found out that the attitude of the patient towards the treatment is not related to their treatment compliance. Suicide interventions for adolescents are more difficult. For nurses who will do the suicide intervention for adolescents, they should be more cautious. If they are trying to increase the compliance of the adolescent patient with the treatment, they would have to consider the psychopathology of the adolescent. Furthermore, they should also encourage the involvement of the parents during the intervention.
Reference:
Sun F-K, Long A, Boore J & Tsao L-I. (2006). Learning Disability and Mental Health. Journal of Clinical Nursing 15, 83–92. Aoun, Samar and Johnson, Lyn. (2000). A consumer’s perspective of a suicide intervention programme. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Mental Health Nursing (2001) 10, 97–104. Burns, CD, Cortell, R,Wagner BM. (2008). Treatment Compliance in Adolescents After Attempted Suicide: A 2-Year Follow-up Study. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 2008;47(8):950-959. Garson, Regina. (2007). Suicicde Intervention and Prevention. Retrieved July 8, 2008 http://hiwaay.net/~garson/suicide.htm