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Our research has made an outstanding contribution to the policy and practice of Health bodies acting to prevent suicide and self-harm. Research conducted within the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory (SBRL) has systematically examined the causal antecedents of self-harm and risk of suicide, leading to the creation of a new theoretical model of suicide that: (1) has substantially informed new public policy, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (NICE) and Royal College of Psychiatrists' (RCP) Clinical Guidelines on the management of self-harm and suicide risk, and; (2) has demonstrably altered practice, both Nationally and Internationally, via the development of assessment tools specifically designed to identify those who are at greatest risk of psychological distress, self-harm and suicide.
Our work on suicide prevention, led by Christabel Owens of the University of Exeter in conjunction with Devon Partnership NHS Trust, has led to environmental changes to improve safety at public locations worldwide. The work has been recognised by ministries of health and cited in national suicide prevention strategies and guidance documents worldwide, and is associated with demonstrable benefits at specific high-risk sites. Ground-breaking research into the role of family members and friends in suicide prevention has led to a strategic partnership with all the major suicide prevention charities that are leading the way in public education in England.
Epidemiological and evaluation research conducted at the UoE has enhanced understanding of risk and protective factors for suicide and self-harm, the relative importance of compositional and contextual effects in explaining suicide inequalities, the unequal distribution of suicide risk in the population and the effectiveness of the national suicide prevention strategies in Scotland and elsewhere. Research findings have been effectively disseminated and have informed the development, implementation and sustaining of evidence-informed suicide prevention programmes and activities in Scotland, resulting in a fall of 18% (from 17.5 to 14.8 per 100,000 population 15+ years) in the suicide rate in Scotland during 2000-2012.
Research on the scale and nature of suicide in Northern Ireland has changed awareness of suicide as a problem and has informed the development of suicide prevention strategies. The findings have received widespread coverage in local, national and international media with impact on a range of audiences. These include policy makers, suicide prevention practitioners, mental health professionals and the wider public. Elected representatives have used the research in debates in the House of Commons and Northern Ireland Assembly. Psychiatrists, counsellors, suicide prevention workers, volunteers for the Samaritans and the Commission on Victims and Survivors have actively engaged with the research.
Staff are concerned as public intellectuals in debating policies that closely affect personal life and happiness, taking part in current social policy debates on adoption policy and on assisted suicide. Their participation is shaped by their historical research at the University of Sunderland within a framework of engagement with modern political debates on social issues which have become of acute concern to the general public.
Impact is demonstrated with reference to the way that the terms of debates have been shaped and re-drawn by this participation, in the media (particularly radio), in Parliament, and amongst healthcare professionals in the UK, and in the parallel controversies of the USA, Japan and South Korea.
Suicide is one of the most serious adverse outcomes in mental health services. NCISH research is based on a comprehensive and internationally unique database (99,000 suicide deaths; 25,000 patient suicide deaths). NCISH impacts upon practice and policy by providing definitive figures on suicide to clinical services and government, producing data-driven safety recommendations and demonstrating that these recommendations reduce suicide. Based on NCISH research, overall patient suicide rates fell by 26% (2004-11), in-patient deaths fell by 58% (2001-2010), and individual recommendations may have prevented between 200-300 patient suicide deaths per year. A new vehicle for impact delivery is the social enterprise Safer Care Ltd (founded 2013), which has already reviewed 4 Trusts and, by reinvesting future income in the social enterprise, we will continue to meet the specific needs of mental health services.
Research led by Professor Keith Hawton in Oxford starting in 2003 showed that the painkiller co- proxamol (`Distalgesic') was the most common drug used for fatal self-poisoning in the UK. The findings led to its complete withdrawal in the UK by 2008, and further research demonstrated that this was followed by a reduction in deaths from suicide and accidental poisoning. The findings were instrumental in the European Medicines Agency decision in 2010 to recommend withdrawal of the toxic component of co-proxamol, dextropropoxyphene, in all EU countries. This has also occurred in the USA, Canada, and several other countries. The withdrawal of co-proxamol is estimated to have led to approximately 600 fewer deaths by 2012 in the UK alone.