Tag: featured

Suicide Prevention

Stories from the side-lines: family members’ expectations of care and treatment for their relatives with suicidal ideations

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By Joeri Vandewalle. There is growing recognition that family involvement is important in the care and treatment of people with suicidal ideations. Family members can provide valuable information about their relatives [1], engage in safety planning [2], and offer support to reduce their relatives’ loneliness [3]. Moreover, family members can support continuity of care by… Continue reading Stories from the side-lines: family members’ expectations of care and treatment for their relatives with suicidal ideations

Suicide Prevention

Are fluffy and fido keys to suicide prevention? The role of pets

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By Valerie J. Douglas. It is not a secret that I love animals. I’ve been teased by colleagues and friends for having a small petting zoo in my apartment- a bird, a dog, and a cat somehow living (relatively) harmoniously. These critters bring great joy to my life, even when they won’t stop screeching when… Continue reading Are fluffy and fido keys to suicide prevention? The role of pets

Suicide Prevention

The need for timely, comprehensive and compassionate care: Experiences of aftercare following high-risk self-harm

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By Grace Cully. “Because the support I had from the members of the crisis team … I had promised them that if I did feel … that I’m getting down, or I would do something … then I promised I would call somebody. Which I did the same day.” [1] Over the course of my… Continue reading The need for timely, comprehensive and compassionate care: Experiences of aftercare following high-risk self-harm

Academia

Please put your own mask on first, before helping others: Taking care of suicide researcher’s mental health and wellbeing

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By Hazel Marzetti. As suicide researchers we inevitably think about suicide (virtually) every day. We spend our time reading, writing and thinking about the saddest and darkest times in other people’s, and sometimes our own, lives. We want to understand these experiences, we want to improve these difficult times, and we want to enhance the… Continue reading Please put your own mask on first, before helping others: Taking care of suicide researcher’s mental health and wellbeing

Research

Finding benefits after adversity: Post-traumatic growth and its association with suicidal thoughts

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By Meryem Betul Yasdiman. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.Victor Frankl People face challenging, sometimes life-changing, experiences throughout their life. These experiences can include losing a loved one, problems at work, a severe illness, natural disasters, or other situations that bring negative emotions. Such stressful… Continue reading Finding benefits after adversity: Post-traumatic growth and its association with suicidal thoughts

Research

Including women and healthcare professionals in conversations about perinatal suicide

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By Kerry Hozhabrafkan. I have a vivid memory of being at university during my midwifery training, listening to the lecturer describe a case study which had been chosen to support our learning. It was the tragic story of a woman who had recently become a mother for the first time and became rapidly unwell. The… Continue reading Including women and healthcare professionals in conversations about perinatal suicide

Research

Examining the pathway to self-harm in high-risk youth using a novel Card Sort Task for Self-Harm (CaTS): It’s time to change how self-harm is assessed

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By Katherine Bird. Self-harm (any self-injury or -poisoning regardless of intent) is a significant public-health concern, affecting between 18.8% and 50% of young people under 25-years [1; 2]. The concern relates to the physical harm, emotional distress, and reduced mental health and wellbeing self-harm causes. Most concerningly, self-harm is the most significant predictor of death… Continue reading Examining the pathway to self-harm in high-risk youth using a novel Card Sort Task for Self-Harm (CaTS): It’s time to change how self-harm is assessed

Research

Postvention: Perceptions of closeness, constructions, and contexts

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By Hilary Causer. In this post I will share with you how my research into the impact of student suicide on staff in United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has led me to consider an expansion to the concept of ‘perceptions of closeness’ [1]. Further, I explore how contextual factors may nurture such perceptions,… Continue reading Postvention: Perceptions of closeness, constructions, and contexts

Suicide Prevention

Why smartphone apps can be useful for students who self-harm

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By Bethany Cliffe. It is well-documented that mental health difficulties are highly prevalent among university students, with self-harm in particular being twice as common in this group than in the general population [1]. The transition to university often involves moving to a new environment and leaving support networks behind, with uncertainties around how and where… Continue reading Why smartphone apps can be useful for students who self-harm

Interviews

On science, ethics, and academic career: An exclusive interview with Daniël Lakens

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Daniël Lakens is an Associate Professor in the Human-Technology interaction group at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His areas of expertise include meta-science, research methods and applied statistics. Daniël’s main lines of empirical research focus on conceptual thought, similarity, and meaning. He also focuses on how to design and interpret studies, applied (meta)-statistics, and reward structures in science. A large part of his work deals with developing methods for critically reviewing and optimally structuring  studies. In this exclusive interview to netECR, Lakens provides very important insights on science, ethics, and academic career.

Lived Experience

I wanted to be a violinist and now I’m a suicide researcher: Why career change can be the best present to your future self

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Change is hard, no matter what the change is. My name is Rhiannon and I’m a second year PhD student within the Suicidal Behaviour Research Lab (SBRL) at the University of Glasgow. I also have an MA(Hons) in Music, and am an orchestral violinist.

Research

Rethinking outcomes in self-harm research

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The effectiveness of an intervention is typically determined by the use of outcome measures, whether this be in research or in clinical practice. In research, outcomes allow for the determination of an intervention’s suitability for wider distribution into communities. In clinical practice, outcomes can contribute to practitioners’ understanding of service users’ wellbeing and whether it has improved or if extra support is required. Clearly, outcome measures can carry a lot of weight, so it is important that the target constructs are meaningful and relevant so that they accurately reflect the experience of ‘recovery’ for each individual.

Research

Getting reflexive: Reflections from a data loving researcher

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By Rebecca Musgrove I’ve always loved numbers. I have vivid memories of the excitement of solving complicated A-level maths problems. I enjoyed the lack of ambiguity; either the answer was right or it was wrong. It was knowable. Twenty years later, via a career implementing community health projects, where there is rarely one straightforward solution,… Continue reading Getting reflexive: Reflections from a data loving researcher

Research

Using single-item measures in suicide and self-harm research

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By Rosie Pendrous. In psychological research, we rely on being able to measure a construct (such as depression) or a behaviour (such as frequency of past self-harm) in a valid and reliable way [1]. In doing so, we need to balance developing measures that accurately tap into the construct or behaviour we intend to measure… Continue reading Using single-item measures in suicide and self-harm research

Lived Experience

For the love of language, can we talk about that?

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By Martina McGrath. Here in Australia social change in relation to suicide prevention is occurring; and it is not without its struggles. The suicide prevention peer workforce (SP Peer Workforce) is emerging as is noted in Hawgood et al [1]. Alongside its emergence is the development and growth of non-clinical alternatives to care for people… Continue reading For the love of language, can we talk about that?

Research

Tips for researching suicide in prison

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By Laura Hemming. “You’re not going to see him on your own, are you?” It was my first day collecting data in prison and I was trying to navigate the complicated process of identifying a potential participant to meet and discuss my research with. “No, no you’d be better off seeing John Smith [1]. He… Continue reading Tips for researching suicide in prison

Suicide Prevention

What support is really there for those who self-harm?

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By Katherine Brown. Support: “to give or be ready to give help to somebody if they need it”. Few would argue against the idea that those who self-harm should be given support to overcome distress and cope in more adaptive ways. But with studies suggesting that approximately half of those who self-harm do not receive… Continue reading What support is really there for those who self-harm?

Suicide Prevention

Self-harm and suicide among asylum seekers and refugees: A call to researchers

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By Katerina Kavalidou and Alessio Albanese. The United Nations’s refugee agency (UNHCR) has recently published an annual Global Trends Report showing that currently, nearly 79.5 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide. Whilst the majority are internally displaced (around 46 million), 26 million are refugees and 4.2 million are asylum seekers [1]. Though often discussed together,… Continue reading Self-harm and suicide among asylum seekers and refugees: A call to researchers

Research

How studying the brain can help us to reduce suicide

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By Justine Dickhoff. The role of the brain in suicide Our brain is one of the most fascinating organs. Even though it only makes up 3% of our body weight it keeps our body running all day. It helps us to accomplish our work, go from place to place and let us understand when a… Continue reading How studying the brain can help us to reduce suicide

Suicide Prevention

The importance of attachment in treating and investigating self-harm

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By Julie Janssens. “I don’t want you to include my parents in therapy!” “I hate them!” “They don’t love me…” “They will not understand what I am going through.” “They have enough on their plate already. I don’t want to burden them with my problems.” “It is like there is a huge skyscraper between us.”… Continue reading The importance of attachment in treating and investigating self-harm