Below is a self-screening for suicide ideations for firefighters/EMT.  Please circle either Y= Yes, or N=No.  When you have completed screening please review your score at the end of the screening.

1. Are you feeling like a burden to your family, friends, or Fire Company or EMS organization? Y/N
2. Do you feel the world would be a better place without you in it? Y/N
3. Have you started to isolate yourself from others in the firehouse or EMS location? Y/N  At Home? Y/N
4. Have you found yourself turning to alcohol or other addictive behaviors to make yourself feel better?  Y/N
5. Have you or someone close to you noticed that your sleeping patterns have changed? Y/N
6. Are you thinking, “What’s the use?” when going to the firehouse or responding on calls? Y/N
7. Do you find yourself thinking about or performing unnecessary risks while at a fire scene or on an emergency incident? Y/N
8. Have you found an increased or new interest in risky activities outside the firehouse/EMT organization such as: sky-diving, reckless motorcycle riding or purchasing guns? Y/N
9. Are you displaying unexplained angry emotions or have you been disciplined recently for anger towards other firefighters/EMTs?      Officers?     Or the Public within the last few months? Y/N                                                                                                                                    (Any option will receive a circle of Yes)
10. Have you been told that “you have changed” by:  Friends?     Family?    Fellow coworkers? Y/N                                                                                                                      (Any option will receive a circle of Yes)
11. Does your family have a history of a suicide? Y/N
12. Do you have a history of feeling depressed? Y/N
13. Do you have feelings of hopelessness? Y/N
14. Do you feel like killing yourself? Y/N
15. Have you created plans to kill yourself? Y/N
16. Have you recently attempted to kill yourself? Y/N

Scoring: Total the amount of (Yes) circled.
Score:__________
If you circled question 14, 15 or 16, SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY by Dialing 911
or  calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255
or calling the Share the Load Program 1-888-731-3473
Once you have reached one of the above, call a trusted family member, friend, chaplain, or counselor.
Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance (FBHA) recommends that if a person answers YES to at least three of these questions, it would be recommended that you contact a local Mental Health Care Professional that deals with firefighters/EMTs that suffer from suicidal ideations and depression.  If you need assistance in finding a counselor in your area, contact FBHA for further information at 847-209-8208.
COURTESY OF FIREFIGHTER BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ALLIANCE

NIMH & SUICIDE

Suicide
​Suicide is an urgent, complex public health crisis. The Suicide Research Team was formed as part of NIMH’s commitment to helping reduce the suicide rate by 20% by 2025.
Suicide ResearchSuicide is a significant global public health problem. Formed in November 2019, the Suicide Research Team leads NIMH’s suicide research activities and coordinates outreach initiatives that engage key agencies and stakeholders supporting research and other efforts to help prevent suicide.
The team’s work focuses on areas that align with the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and significantly impact the Institute’s commitment to reducing the suicide rate by 20% by 2025. This includes activities like advancing suicide prevention research in health care settings. The team also focuses on potential increases in suicide-associated risks due to the COVID-19 pandemic (for example, distress associated with unemployment) and increases in suicide risk for underserved populations. The team’s initiatives are continually evolving to meet newer and emerging priorities, such as concerning trends in youth suicide, especially among Black youth.
The Suicide Research Team helps develop suicide-related workshops and funding opportunities to address suicide prevention research gaps. Topics range from suicide etiology (for example, social isolation; sleep problems) and risk identification (for example, risk algorithms from electronic medical records) to implementing practical and scalable interventions in a variety of settings, including health care, education, and criminal justice systems that serve at-risk populations.

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Brief Suicide Prevention Interventions in Acute Care Settings May Reduce Subsequent Suicide AttemptsSeptember 16, 2020
​National Institute of Mental Health

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, and rates of suicide have been rising in each of the last 15 years. Research has shown that more than one-third of people who die by suicide had a health care encounter in the week before their death, and half within a month before their death. Because of this, health care organizations are well positioned to provide suicide prevention interventions during patient visits. However, clinical teams require evidence-based interventions to address suicide risk directly and ensure that patients transition to ongoing mental health care.
In a research project led by Stephanie K. Doupnik, M.D., and supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, researchers conducted a systematic review of studies (called a meta-analysis) on clinical trials of brief suicide prevention interventions to determine how effective these interventions might be in acute care settings, such as hospitals, emergency departments, and urgent care centers. Their findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.
The team included 14 studies in the meta-analysis, representing a total of 4,270 patients. The three primary outcomes they examined were: subsequent suicide attempts, linkage to follow-up care, and depression symptoms at follow-up.
The included studies evaluated brief suicide prevention interventions to promote ongoing mental health care and reduce subsequent suicide attempts. The researchers identified studies that included four main components in their interventions: brief contact interventions, care coordination, safety planning interventions, and other brief therapies.

• Brief contact interventions included telephone calls, postcards, and letters.
• Care coordination included scheduling outpatient mental health appointments, mobile crisis response team evaluations, as well as outpatient mental health appointments and collaborating with patients’ families to reduce barriers to attending appointments.
• Safety planning interventions included components such as identifying family, friends, and social places that can distract from suicidal thoughts; identifying individuals who can help during a suicidal crisis; and listing mental health professionals and urgent care services to contact during a suicidal crisis.
• Brief therapeutic interventions included other interventions that used a variety of therapeutic techniques to reduce a patient’s likelihood of self-harm.

Looking at the primary outcomes of the studies together, the researchers found that brief suicide prevention interventions were associated with reduced subsequent suicide attempts and increased linkage to follow-up care. The researchers found that the brief suicide prevention interventions in these studies were not associated with statistically significant reductions in depression symptoms. The most common component among the interventions in the studies was promoting connectedness via engagement with health care clinicians and with the patient’s community.
An important future research direction, the researchers wrote, is to identify and test implementation strategies for brief suicide prevention interventions in acute care settings. To do this, the authors suggest that health care settings need robust systems to identify patients with suicide risk, and that clinical teams require access to mental health professionals with skills and expertise to provide brief interventions. They also suggested future research could investigate implementing these kinds of interventions in acute care settings outside of traditional health care, like jails and crisis homeless shelters.