Perspectives on family-based suicide prevention and postvention

Abstract

Suicide remains an important public health problem worldwide. Many countries have developed national suicide prevention policies or guidelines, which often include family-based recommendations regarding suicide prevention, intervention or postvention. A recent systematic review, published in this journal, failed to find evidence of an impact of family-based recommendations in national guidelines on national suicide rates. In this editorial, we review other studies providing promising evidence of effectiveness of family-based interventions in the field of suicide prevention and postvention, and note that further studies are needed, especially in adult and older adult populations.