http://goo.gl/9YNkkQ
A new study published in The Lancet outlines a programme for preventing suicidality among young people. The results provide strong endorsement for a method whereby school students learn to discover signs of mental ill-health in themselves and their friends, while they are also trained to understand, interpret and manage challenging emotions. The European study was led from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and researchers now hope to see the method reach a large number of young people in European schools.
The study provides results showing the effectiveness of the Awareness Programme - which gives students a tool to exercise influence over their mental health - in preventing attempted suicide and serious suicidal thoughts with plans how to commit suicide. One year after completing the programme, the number of attempted suicides and serious suicidal thoughts and planned suicides in this group was 50% lower compared with the control group. In the two other groups, where the responsibility for the students' mental health rested exclusively with the teacher or professional health care personnel, the proportion was the same as in the control group.