Background
Every suicide is a tragedy and causes distress for family, friends, professionals and the wider community. Although the factors that contribute to a suicide are many and complex, suicide is potentially preventable. Swansea University has run a series of studies investigating factors that may have contributed to these deaths.
They have also looked for opportunities for prevention and made recommendations to reduce the risk of suicide for the people of Wales and beyond.
The study
One of the studies is the Suicide Information Database-Wales or SID-Cymru, led by Dr Ann John, Swansea University. SID-Cymru anonymously links electronic routinely collected information on prior health, nature of previous contacts with services and wider social circumstances of all those who complete suicide (known and unknown to mental health services) within the population of Wales via Swansea University’s Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank.
The SAIL Databank contains vast amounts of data routinely collected on a daily basis by health and social care systems to support people’s care. The team at Swansea University, which includes Professors Keith Lloyd and Michael Dennis, are also conducting a study related to the impact of media reporting of suicide.
Impact