Preventing suicide in primary care patients: the primary care physician's role.

Schulberg HC, Bruce ML, Lee PW, Williams JW, Dietrich AJ. Preventing suicide in primary care patients: the primary care physician's role. General hospital psychiatry. 2004 Sep 1; 26(5):337-45.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

Suicide is a critical public health problem that primary care physicians potentially can help address given that distressed patients frequently visit them in the weeks and months preceding the successful suicide. This article considers factors placing the patient at high risk for successful suicide and clinical assessment techniques available to the primary care physician. Patients who wish to harm themselves but still lack an articulated plan for doing so can be treated by the primary care physician with the monitoring assistance of a depression care manager and appropriate consultation by a mental health specialist.