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Young people are more likely to be affected by suicide contagion, and there are concerns about the role social media plays in the development and maintenance of suicide clusters or in facilitating imitative suicidal behavior. However, social media also presents an opportunity to provide real-time and age-appropriate suicide prevention information, which could be an important component of suicide postvention activities. This study aimed to test an intervention designed to equip young people to communicate safely online about suicide (#chatsafe) with a sample of young people who had recently been exposed to a suicide or suicide attempt, with a view to determining the role social media can play as part of a postvention response. A sample of 266 young people from Australia, aged 16 to 25 years, were recruited to participate in the study. They were eligible if they had been exposed to a suicide or knew of a suicide attempt in the past 2 years. All participants received the #chatsafe intervention, which comprised 6 pieces of social media content that were sent to them weekly via direct message through Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat. Participants were assessed on a range of outcome measures (social media use, willingness to intervene against suicide, internet self-efficacy, confidence, and safety when communicating about suicide on social media platforms) at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and at 4-week follow-up. After the 6-week #chatsafe intervention, participants reported substantial improvements in their willingness to intervene against suicide online, their internet self-efficacy, and their perceived confidence and safety when communicating about suicide online. Overall, the participants reported that it was appropriate to receive the #chatsafe intervention via social media, and no iatrogenic effects were recorded. The findings suggest that it is safe and acceptable to disseminate suicide prevention information entirely via social media among young people who have recently been exposed to a suicide or suicide attempt. Interventions such as #chatsafe could potentially mitigate the risk of distress and future suicidal behavior in young people by improving the quality and safety of online communication about suicide and, as such, can be an important component of delivering a postvention response to young people.

Background Suicide bereavement is a risk factor for adverse outcomes related to grief, social functioning, mental health and suicidal behaviour. Consequently, suicide bereavement support (i.e., postvention) has been identified as an important suicide prevention strategy. However, little is known about its effectiveness. To redress this gap, this review aimed to assess the evidence of effectiveness of interventions for people bereaved by suicide, and appraise the quality of the research in this field. Methods We conducted a systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines. Searches of peer-reviewed literature in Medline, PsycINFO, Embase and EBM Reviews identified 12 papers reporting on 11 relevant studies conducted between 1984 and 2018. Results Across studies, there was a wide variety of intervention modalities, study populations, control groups, and grief, psychosocial and suicide-related outcome measures. Overall, the quality of studies was weak. While there was some evidence of the effectiveness of interventions for uncomplicated grief, evidence of the effectiveness of complicated grief interventions was lacking. Based on this scant evidence, interventions which seem to show promise include supportive, therapeutic and educational approaches, involve the social environment of the bereaved, and comprise a series of sessions led by trained facilitators. Conclusions There is a clear need for additional methodologically sound studies in this area. Specifically, selection procedures, sample sizes, randomization, and the use of appropriate measures are crucial. As people bereaved by suicide are at-risk of adverse grief, mental ill-health and suicidal behaviour, further research across the life-span is essential to prevent grief and mental health ramifications.

IntroductionDuring their career and sometimes during their training psychiatrists have to deal with the suicide of patients and have also to help other colleagues and families to cope with the situation. Suicide postvention should be integrated in psychiatric training and better implemented in both psychiatric and community contexts.ObjectivesTo discuss the concept of suicide postvention in Psychiatry. To discuss the importance of addressing suicide postvention in psychiatric settings including during specialized training of Psychiatry residents.MethodsMEDLINE and PubMed databases searches for peer-reviewed studies, published in the last ten years, using combinations of the key-words suicide postvention and psychiatry. Selection of the relevant studies according to the study aims.ResultsThe literature search retrieved a total of 44 papers. All the articles that didn´t refer to the studied topic were excluded. Relevant articles discussing suicide postvention were selected, comprising a total of 22 articles. The reviewed papers discuss different contexts and strategies of suicide postvention that will be explored and critically discussed.ConclusionsAddressing the topic of suicide postvention and implementing support programs and training in this field is crucial to psychiatry trainees, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals that integrate multidisciplinary teams, patients and their families and also to the community as a whole. Future research in this field can help to improve suicide postvention across different settings.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Blekinge Family Postvention is a grief facilitator-home-visiting postvention giving early support to families after a suicidal loss since 2015. It helps families overcome shock, pain, anger, guilt, suffering and other extreme emotions caused by suicide. Such situations should be treated not as a disorder. Medication should be used only as a last resort to treat individuals not responding to early family support, followed by individual sessions if needed. Everyone needs to express feelings and thoughts on all aspects of the suddenly interrupted relation. To achieve this, a person experienced in those issues must be leading all of the meetings. The conversations should start during the first days, frequently continuing for at least 3-5 weeks depending on the family needs. Helping the family bear each other and find coping strategies ease their pain, mourning and give them hope instead of prolonged grief. In this way, the family gradually finds new ways to overcome a never-ending negative looping that eventually can cause, e.g. post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The support to the family after suicide loss should be a governmental matter. Today all work is done voluntarily. The close relatives need debriefing right after the district doctor has stated the death or the police informed the family about suicide. The military, the police, rescue services and healthcare professionals gets debriefing when a rescue operation has failed. This presentation discusses how to organise early family support and the Ellipse project’s interviews with survivors about their experiences of needed or received support if any.

Background: A loved one’s loss due to suicide can be a traumatic experience and trigger a complex grief process. Although spirituality, defined as a search for the Sacred in a broad sense, can be a resource and an obstacle in coping with the suicide bereavement process, there is a gap in scientific understanding of the role spirituality plays during the process. Methods: To explore the role of spirituality in people bereaved by suicide, we recruited 11 women who lost a life partner due to suicide. We conducted semi-structured interviews and analyzed the data using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: We identified the following three themes: spirituality is a supportive resource that can be reached for or achieved without conscious involvement; spirituality provides helpful ways to cope with grief; spirituality makes the grief process more difficult. Conclusions: Spirituality, if personally meaningful and supported by others, can function as a resource after a loved one’s suicide and even add to post-traumatic growth after the loss. On the contrary, spirituality-related issues, such as stigmatization and a lack of personally meaningful traditions, can distress the bereaved. Difficult spiritual experiences and questions can become an intricate part of the grief process.

People bereaved by suicide are affected psychologically and physically and may be at greater risk of taking their own lives. Whilst researchers have explored the impact of suicide on family members and friends, the area of colleague suicide has been neglected and postvention guidance for supporting surviving colleagues is often poorly developed. This critical integrative review explored the impact of colleague suicide on surviving co-workers and reviewed postvention guidance for workplaces. Systematic searches found 17 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Articles were appraised for quality and extracted data were analysed using a thematic network method. Article quality was moderate. Two global themes were developed: impact of a colleague suicide comprised themes of ‘suicide loss in the workplace’; ‘professional identities and workplace roles’; ‘perceptions of professional uniqueness’; and ‘professional abandonment and silencing’. Postvention following a colleague suicide comprised ‘individualised responses’; ‘the dual function of stigma’; and ‘complex pressure on managers’. A unifying global network ‘after a colleague suicide’ describes the relationships between all themes. A series of disconnects between existing postvention guidance and the needs of impacted workers are discussed. This review demonstrates the need for robust, systemic postvention for colleagues impacted by the complex issue of colleague suicide.

Suicide bereavement support groups are a widely available format of postvention service. Although other reviews have addressed peer-led bereavement interventions, no review has focused specifically on peer-led support for people bereaved by suicide. Informed by a framework for undertaking scoping reviews, we conducted a systematic review according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Searches conducted in May 2021 of peer-reviewed literature in MEDLINE (EBSCO), CINAHL Complete (EBSCO), PsycINFO (EBSCO), EMBASE (Elsevier), AMED (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), Web of Science (Core Collection), ASSIA (Proquest), and Global Index Medicus. The search was not limited by language, and all studies were included to full text screening. The search identified 10 studies conducted between 1994 and 2020 in five countries. The selected papers were subjected to quality assessment. The interventions included face-to-face groups, telephone and online groups/forums and were evaluated using a variety of methodologies, which made comparison and synthesis challenging. Thematic analysis resulted in four themes: motivation, impact, aspects of intervention which hindered/enhanced outcomes, and recommendations for the practice of peer support made by the authors. While there were methodological limitations to most studies included in this review; the studies do indicate the potential benefit of peer-led support to those bereaved through suicide. Future studies should provide a definition of ‘peer’ and a clear description of the intervention being evaluated. As the field matures there is a need for more rigorous evaluation of peer interventions with representative samples, studies that compare the impact of various types of peer interventions, and studies of the peer group processes.

The knowledge on health service use, systematic follow-up, and support for families bereaved by suicide remains scarce. This scoping review includes studies from 2010 to March 2022 that investigate the follow-up and support offered by health services, peer support services, and other resources available (e.g., internet-based resources) for families bereaved by suicide. We followed the scoping review framework provided by the Johanna Briggs Institute and performed a double-blinded screening process using Covidence. Data were extracted by four researchers and a thematic analysis was performed to summarize the results. The PRISMA Extension for Scoping reviews was used for reporting results. Of 2385 studies screened by title, 190 by abstract, and 93 by full-text reading, we included 63 original articles of which 24, 29 and 10 were quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods studies, respectively. The review shows that we have some knowledge about the need for, and experiences with, health services and support resources for immediate family members bereaved by suicide, but a lack of knowledge about their help-seeking behaviour, patient pathways, systematic follow-up, coordination between services, and long-term outcomes. We need more longitudinal observational studies of health service use and patient trajectories for people bereaved by suicide.

It is estimated that between 36,000 and 360,000 people are affected by suicide every year in the UK, and a proportion may develop depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or engage in high-risk behaviours. Recent systematic analyses have revealed a clear gap in research on suicide bereavement in minority ethnic groups. This study aimed to understand the experiences and support needs of individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds bereaved by suicide and was the first in the UK to investigate this matter. The study was a secondary analysis of data. Participants were 7158 people residing in the UK who completed an online survey about their experiences of suicide. Free-text qualitative responses of 227 participants who did not identify as White British were analysed using thematic analysis. Four themes were identified: maladaptive coping strategies, emotional processes following suicide, lack of support from agencies, and the importance of mental health awareness. Ethnic minority groups reported a lack of support despite attempts to engage with services, noted the prevalence of stigma within ethnic minority groups, and expressed a need to tackle this. These preliminary results suggest that ethnic minority individuals require visible and accessible services that can successfully engage with and support them.

Background The rapid evolution of social media in recent years has increased public exposure to suicide. While research has highlighted concerns about the role of social media in facilitating harmful discourse and imitative suicidal behaviour, there is a wide gap in our understanding of the impact of social media exposure in the aftermath of a suicide, and no research to our knowledge from preventive public and mental health perspectives. This qualitative study explored the experiences of public and mental health professionals in relation to social media exposure following a suicide. The study aimed to (1) Better understand social media risks from a public health perspective; (2) Provide insights for public health policy and strategy to enhance suicide prevention efforts and inform guidance for responding. Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 purposively sampled public and mental health professionals based on their roles in crisis response, suicide prevention, and digital monitoring. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focusing on their experiences of responding to suicide-related risks on social media, including the spread of information across platforms, public engagement with content, impact, and intervention challenges. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify emerging themes. Results Four key themes emerged: (1) The communicative ecology of social media (where the public act as content purveyors, rapidly disseminating varied and often unregulated narratives); (2) Harmful effects (including the copycat effect and toxic discourse); (3) Positive effects (where protective discourse and moderation offer harm reduction opportunities); and (4) Challenges in intervention (including content moderation difficulties and algorithmic biases that amplify harmful narratives). Conclusion Findings highlight the need for improved content moderation, public health-led digital monitoring, and education on safe social media use. Strengthening real-time suicide surveillance, improving collaboration with social media platforms, and promoting public awareness of digital literacy are critical to mitigating risks and ensuring social media supports suicide prevention efforts. As digital communication continues to evolve, proactive public health strategies will be essential in safeguarding vulnerable individuals.