Publication - Strategy/plan

Scottish Government: Suicide Prevention Strategy 2013 - 2016

Published: 3 December 2013
Topic: Health and social care
ISBN: 9781784120603

The Scottish Government's suicide prevention strategy to 2016 sets out key areas of work that we believe will continue to reduce the number of suicides in Scotland.

Supporting documents

Footnotes

1 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/10/26112102/0

2 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/10/26112102/0

3 For comparative reasons we have used the coding rules which were in place when the target was set. New rules from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for coding the causes of death mean that 'drug abuse' deaths from 'acute intoxication' previously counted under 'mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use' are now classified as 'poisoning', so some of them will be counted as probable suicides. We will continue to use the old coding rules for comparative purposes so as to see the underlying changes and longer-term trends without the break in series caused by the introduction of the new coding rules. (General Register Office for Scotland http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/deaths/suicides/main-points.html.)

4 Annual changes are based on relatively small numbers, so may not be statistically significant. For monitoring purposes it is conventional to pool rates over a three-year period, and develop three-year rolling averages. The three-year rolling average from 2010-12 is 14.3 per 100,000. http://www.scotpho.org.uk/health-wellbeing-and-disease/suicide/data/scottish-trends

5 Scottish Public Health Observatory http://www.scotpho.org.uk/health-wellbeing-and-disease/suicide/data/scottish-trends and WHO http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en

6 http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/2013-06-25/2013-06-25-ABI-Report.pdf

7 http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Mental-Health/Psychological-Therapies.asp

8 http://www.hqip.org.uk/national-confidential-inquiry-into-suicide-and-homicide

9 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Performance/scotPerforms/outcome/healthier

10 The target is informed by a decision adopted at the Sixty-Sixth World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO): "Global target 3.2: The rate of suicide in countries will be reduced by 10% (by the year 2020)." http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA66/A66_R8-en.pdf

11 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/03/17153551/0

12 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/08/9714

13 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/08/9714

14 http://www.chooselife.net/Media/index.aspx

15 http://www.seemescotland.org

16 http://www.hqip.org.uk/national-confidential-inquiry-into-suicide-and-homicide

17 http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/about_us.aspx

18 http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Public-Health/Publications/2012-12-18/2012-12-18-ScotSID-2012-Report.pdf

19 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/229649/0062206.pdf

20 The charts present data from different time periods for reasons of data availability.

21 For statistical purposes, deaths for which the underlying cause was classified as 'intentional self-harm' or 'event of undetermined intent' are counted as probable suicides. The figures will therefore be higher than would be the case if (say) one counted only those deaths which had been confirmed as suicide following the completion of the relevant legal processes. (http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/deaths/suicides/definition-of-stats/index.html)

22 See Commitments 13 on access to psychological therapies and 15 on social prescribing in the Mental Health Strategy 2012-2015 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0039/00398762.pdf

23 "Reviewing long-term antidepressants can reduce drug burden" British Journal of General Practice Volume 62, Number 604, November 2012, pp. e773-e779(7)

24 Commitment 22: We will work with the Royal College of GPs and other partners to increase the number of people with long-term conditions with a co-morbidity of depression or anxiety who are receiving appropriate care and treatment for their mental illness.

25 http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Public-Health/Publications/2012-12-18/2012-12-18-ScotSID-2012-Report.pdf

26 http://www.hqip.org.uk/national-confidential-inquiry-into-suicide-and-homicide

27 http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/mental_health/suicide_reviews.aspx

28 http://www.scotland-judiciary.org.uk/10/895/Fatal-Accident-Inquiry-into-the-deaths-on-Erskine-Bridge

29 http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Utilities/Documentrecord/index.htm?d=MRC004871

30 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/Services/Mental-Health/Suicide-Self-Harm/Working-Group