Suicide risk is complex, but there are common factors

The taking of one’s life is the result of a complex phenomenon in which each death-by-suicide case is different, a lecture in Halifax heard Thursday night.

Speaker Gustavo Turecki, a visiting psychiatrist and suicide researcher, said even though each case is distinct there are common factors that increase the risk.

For instance, he said, people with mental disorders and such personality traits as “impulsive/aggressive” behaviours are at a higher risk of suicide.

“One of the things we see when we study individuals who died by suicide very often is that they tend, as a group, … to have higher rates of impulsive behaviour,” said Turecki, a professor and suicidologist at McGill University in Montreal.

He said suicide can run in families, citing the example of American writer Ernest Hemingway’s family. The author died by suicide in 1961.

Turecki was speaking at an event in the Halifax Central Library on Spring Garden Road. He said that many times, a suicidal crisis “may come and go” without death occurring.

Effective prevention measures include proper diagnosis and treatment, installing anti-suicide barriers on infrastructure, like bridges, and at such public transit sites as subway stations, decreasing access to guns and responsible media reporting that educates people instead of “romanticizing” suicide, Turecki said.

He said some media coverage of the death of U.S. musician and singer Kurt Cobain, who died by suicide in 1994, tended to romanticize his passing.

“Often media does not communicate the suffering these people were going through,” said Turecki, who’s the Psychiatrist-In-Chief at the Douglas Institute for mental health in Montreal, which is part of McGill’s health network.

About 11 people die by suicide each day in Canada, a federal government website says.

According to Ottawa, these populations have a higher rate or risk of dying by suicide: all Inuit regions of the country, some First Nations and Metis communities (especially youth), men and boys, people serving federal prison sentences, survivors of a suicide loss and survivors of a suicide attempt.

Turecki, whose expertise includes depressive disorders, told CBC Radio several years ago “most of the people who died by suicide did not look for help.”

He said it’s important “to make people aware that treatment is available for states of depression. And when they feel very depressed, they should go and look for help, because sometimes depression can kill.”

The website for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto says signs of behaviour of people at risk for suicide may include the following: showing a sudden change in mood, exhibiting a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, expressing the wish to die or end their life, increasing their substance use, withdrawing from people and activities previously enjoyed, experiencing sleep pattern changes, showing a decreased appetite and giving away prized possessions or making preparations for their death.

Help is available 24 hours daily through the Canada Suicide Prevention Service, at 1-833-456-4566 or via text at 45645, from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., Atlantic time. (Text messaging rates apply.)

At the library talk Thursday, held during Mental Health Week (May 2-8), Turecki said life stress, such as personal loss, money problems, humiliating events and childhood trauma, can be triggers for suicidal behaviour.

He said about 4,000 people die by suicide every year in Canada. The most common method is hanging.

Turecki said “there are interventions” that get people off the path of suicidal thoughts.

“And that has to do with psychotherapies, other social approaches that help people better develop skills to deal with the difficulties” they’re experiencing, he said, and there are crisis services available for those in need.

An audience member who’s survived more than one suicide attempt, told Turecki that “I, fortunately, had great doctors. I still have great doctors.”

But the attendee added “I have heard situations (involving other doctors) … not taking the suicide attempt … seriously. So, I believe more has to be done.”

Officials with the Canadian Mental Health Association and other advocates of mental wellness have for years tried to combat the stigma that’s still hooked to mental illness.

Experts have said progress has been made. (For example, some families now include references to mental illness and/or suicide in published obituaries or social media statements.)

The association’s Edmonton chapter offers tips on writing an obituary honouring a loved one who’s died by suicide.

In Nova Scotia, suicide prevention and other mental-health assistance are available for people requiring such help. Nova Scotia's Mental Health Crisis Line is available 24/7 by calling toll-free 1-888-429-8167. For more information, go here.

The Nova Scotia Health Authority has information on preventing suicide and related programs.

Halifax Public Libraries hosted Turecki’s lecture in partnership with the Association of Nova Scotia Psychologists, the CMHA and Dalhousie University.

Michael Lightstone is a freelance reporter living in Dartmouth