988 Data Is Encouraging, But Suicide Prevention Still Depends On Competent Care

Nearly 4,400 fewer teens and young adults died by suicide than projected, according to a JAMA study reported by the Associated Press. The study linked this encouraging development to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which launched in July 2022.

Over the first two-and-a-half years after 988 became available, suicide deaths among Americans ages 15 to 23 were 11 percent lower than researchers expected. That is meaningful. It is also not the whole story, and the researchers themselves were careful to say so.

A suicide malpractice lawyer who has spent decades examining the clinical and systemic failures that lead to preventable deaths understands why an 11 percent reduction in projected youth suicide mortality matters. But that finding does not prove that a hotline alone caused the decline. Understanding what the study shows, what it does not show, and where suicide prevention still breaks down matters for anyone serious about saving lives.

If you or someone you know is in immediate crisis, call or text 988 now. If there is immediate danger, call 911.

What Did The 988 Study Actually Find?

The study was carefully constructed, and the researchers were appropriately cautious in their conclusions. The gap between what the study found and how the data can be oversimplified is worth examining directly.

• The Core Finding: Suicide deaths among 15- to 23-year-olds were 11 percent lower than projected during the study period, representing nearly 4,400 fewer deaths than researchers modeled. That gap between projected and actual mortality is real and worth taking seriously.
• The Methodology: Researchers used nationwide death certificate records from 1999 to 2022 to model expected suicide mortality had the 988 line never launched, then compared those projections to actual recorded deaths. They also ran additional comparisons to stress-test their findings. That is careful public health research, but it still establishes association, not certainty.
• The Researchers’ Own Caution: The study’s lead author acknowledged that the researchers could not say for certain that 988 was the sole cause of the decline. That caveat is not a technicality. It is central to what the data supports.
• The Long-Term Youth Suicide Trend: A separate PNAS study analyzing 122 years of U.S. mortality data found that suicide risk among young people has been rising steadily for more than half a century. A two-and-a-half-year window of lower-than-projected deaths does not reverse that generational trend. It exists within it.
• Other Possible Contributors: Expanded telehealth access, increased public awareness, post-pandemic shifts in treatment-seeking, changes in crisis response, and broader clinical practice changes may also have contributed to the short-term reduction. The study design cannot rule those factors out.

The federal investment in 988 may well be part of the story behind the short-term findings. It is almost certainly not the whole story, and treating it as the whole story risks ignoring the deeper clinical and systemic work that suicide prevention requires.

Why Can A Crisis Hotline Help But Still Not Be Enough?

Crisis hotlines serve a real function. They can connect a person in acute distress to a trained voice, a resource, and sometimes an intervention at the moment they need it most. For some people, that contact can be lifesaving.

But a hotline cannot replace the clinical infrastructure that determines whether a person in crisis ultimately receives competent care. A caller may still need an emergency evaluation, inpatient psychiatric placement, medication review, family involvement, follow-up care, or a safety plan that actually addresses the danger.

That is where preventable deaths still happen. A person may reach out for help, enter a hospital, meet with a psychiatrist, see a therapist, or appear in an emergency room, and still die because the provider in front of them failed to assess, protect, and treat them with the care the situation required. The broader facts about suicide make clear that prevention cannot stop at crisis-line access. It has to continue through competent clinical decision-making.

What Actually Moves The Needle On Suicide Prevention?

A hotline can be a valuable entry point into a system that works. It cannot compensate for a system that fails once the person is in the hands of a provider. The safeguards that most directly protect suicidal patients often operate downstream, at the point where clinicians, hospitals, and mental health facilities are legally and ethically responsible for care.

• Competent Risk Assessment At Every Point Of Clinical Contact: The single most consequential question is whether the clinician accurately assesses the patient’s risk. Emergency rooms, psychiatric facilities, outpatient providers, and primary care physicians all encounter patients at risk for suicide. When they do, they must assess that risk with the training and rigor the standard of care demands.
• Adequate Inpatient Psychiatric Capacity: A crisis call that results in a referral to inpatient care only prevents a death if that care is available without dangerous delay. Gaps in inpatient psychiatric capacity can leave adolescents and young adults waiting when they need immediate protection.
• Trained Clinicians Who Understand Suicidal Patients: The mental health field has strong training available in the detection, assessment, management, and treatment of suicidal patients. Too few providers seek it. The gap between what is known about suicide prevention and what is actually practiced remains one of the field’s most damaging failures.
• Proper Observation and Environmental Safety: In a psychiatric facility, suicide prevention requires more than general concern. It requires observation levels that match the patient’s risk, removal of ligature hazards and other dangers, staff communication, and a care plan that does not leave a high-risk patient alone with the means to die by suicide. Failures involving improper suicide watch can become deadly within minutes.
• Post-Discharge Follow-Through: The period immediately following a psychiatric discharge is one of the highest-risk windows for suicide. Follow-up contact, outpatient connection, family involvement where appropriate, and a documented safety plan are not optional extras. They are part of adequate care.
• Accountability That Changes Behavior: When mental health providers and facilities face no meaningful consequences for preventable patient deaths, they have less structural incentive to invest in better training, higher staffing levels, and stronger safety protocols. Accountability is not separate from suicide prevention. It is one of the ways preventable deaths force systems to change.

The number of people who die while under the active care of mental health providers shows that the system still has a long way to go. The 988 data is encouraging, but it cannot excuse failures that occur after a suicidal person reaches the health care system.

How Do Mental Health Providers Fail Suicidal Patients?

Many suicide malpractice cases begin with a simple but devastating fact: the provider had enough information to act and did not. The warning signs may have been in the chart, disclosed to a therapist, visible in behavior, reported by family members, or apparent during an emergency room visit. The problem is not always that no one knew. Too often, the problem is that no one responded properly.

Common failures may include failing to ask directly about suicidal thoughts, failing to document a risk assessment, underestimating risk despite prior attempts, discharging a patient too soon, using the wrong observation level, failing to communicate risk between providers, ignoring family warnings, or failing to remove hazards from an inpatient setting.

These are not abstract policy problems. They are failures of care. The standard of care requires mental health professionals to take suicide risk seriously, assess it competently, document it, and respond with reasonable protective steps. When providers fail to do that, families may have the right to pursue accountability.

What Evidence Matters In A Suicide Malpractice Case?

A suicide malpractice case depends on what the provider knew, what they should have known, what they did, and what they failed to do. The medical record is often the starting point, but it is rarely the whole story.

Important evidence may include intake forms, suicide risk assessments, nursing notes, therapy notes, medication records, discharge paperwork, observation logs, safety plans, staff communications, family reports, prior treatment records, and facility policies. In inpatient cases, physical evidence from the room, observation practices, staffing levels, and ligature-risk documentation may also matter.

Proving liability in a suicide case requires more than showing that a tragedy occurred. It requires showing that the provider’s negligence caused or contributed to the death. That often means examining whether the provider could have anticipated the risk, whether protective steps were available, and whether competent care would have changed the outcome. The Law Offices of Skip Simpson has long focused on proving liability in suicide cases by connecting clinical failures to preventable harm.

Why Does Accountability Matter For Suicide Prevention?

Accountability is not about pretending every suicide can be predicted with perfect certainty; it can’t. The standard is not prediction but foreseeability. It is about recognizing that some deaths occur after clear warning signs, missed assessments, unsafe discharge decisions, inadequate monitoring, or facility practices that needlessly endanger patients.

When that happens, the legal system may be the only mechanism that forces a provider or facility to answer for what went wrong. A wrongful death lawsuit arising from negligent mental health care can help a family seek justice, but it can also expose dangerous practices that might otherwise stay hidden.

That is why prevention and accountability belong in the same conversation. Better training, better staffing, better risk assessment, and better discharge planning are not optional goals. They are the standards that save lives.

When Mental Health Providers Fail The People In Their Care

The Law Offices of Skip Simpson has spent decades representing families who lost loved ones to suicide while those loved ones were under the care of mental health providers who failed to meet the standard of care. Based in Frisco, Texas, and representing clients nationwide, Skip Simpson understands both the clinical obligations that govern psychiatric care and the strategies defense-side insurers use when providers fall short.

We believe many suicides are preventable with competent care, and we pursue accountability because it is one of the strongest tools available for demanding that providers do better.

If your family has lost someone to suicide while they were under the care of a mental health provider, contact us for a free consultation.

“Skip Simpson was my attorney regarding a mental health treatment team. I became the first person in the country to win a lawsuit against treaters who practiced recovered memories. That was 30 years ago. Skip was an amazing attorney for me and still is. He is the best in dealing with mental health issues. First a client, still a lifelong friend.” – Laura P., ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Psychiatric Facilities Are Facing A Growing Mental Health Crisis Among Young Patients

If you placed a young family member in a psychiatric facility because you believed it was the safest place for them, you made that choice out of love. You trusted that trained professionals would keep your child, your teenager, or your young adult safe. When that trust is broken, the grief that follows is unlike almost anything else, and so is the question that won’t stop: could this have been prevented?

A landmark study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms what many families may have sensed for years. Researchers at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah analyzed 122 years of U.S. mortality data and found that suicide risk among young people has been rising steadily since the mid-to-late 1950s. “What we’re seeing is not a short-term spike but a generational shift. Each successive generation has faced higher suicide risk at a younger age than the one before it,” said University of Utah assistant professor of psychiatry Nina de Lacy, the study’s lead researcher.

That finding matters for families dealing with the aftermath of a psychiatric facility’s failure. Rising youth suicide rates place a greater burden on mental health providers to meet the standard of care, not a lesser one. The Law Offices of Skip Simpson has spent decades holding psychiatric hospitals and mental health facilities accountable when they fail to protect the patients placed in their care.

What Did Researchers Discover About Suicide?

The University of Utah study drew on data spanning from 1900 to 2021, making it the most comprehensive long-term picture of U.S. suicide trends ever assembled. Historically, older adults have carried the highest suicide risk. That has shifted sharply. Today, suicide is among the leading causes of death for Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, and the research shows that rate climbed among younger people for more than six consecutive decades.

The study also found that if the country had maintained its lowest observed age-specific suicide rates, more than 372,000 deaths could have been prevented between 1969 and 2021. That number carries a weight that’s hard to absorb. It tells us these deaths were not inevitable. They happened because something wasn’t working, and in too many cases, what wasn’t working was the care inside a psychiatric facility—and they know it.

Some of the other findings deserve attention as well. The data showed that suicide rates among young women in rural and smaller urban communities have risen sharply in recent years, and that hanging has increased significantly as a method since the 1980s, forming what the researchers describe as a trend that has received far less attention than other methods. These are exactly the kinds of details that matter when assessing whether a facility took appropriate precautions.

Psychiatric Facilities Have Clear Responsibilities Under The Standard Of Care

When a patient is admitted to a psychiatric facility, that facility assumes a legal duty of care. The standard of care in suicide prevention is not vague or undefined. It includes specific, documented obligations that trained clinicians and facility staff are expected to follow.

• Thorough Suicide Risk Assessment On Admission: Every patient admitted for psychiatric care must be assessed for suicide risk using accepted clinical protocols, not a brief intake form completed by an undertrained staff member. Competent clinicians know a suicidal person cannot be expected to volunteer the truth about suicide plans; the judgment of a suicidal person is clouded, thinking is confused, and cannot be relied upon to adequately assess its own dangerous state. The clinician MUST understand the Suicide Crisis Syndrome and its five recognizable criteria. See The Suicidal Crisis: Clinical Guide to the Assessment of Imminent Suicide Risk, Second Edition, Igor Galynker (2023). When a patient denies being suicidal, that is the start of the assessment, not the end.
• Ongoing Monitoring Throughout The Patient’s Stay: A risk assessment done at admission does not cover the patient’s entire hospitalization. Facilities must reassess patients regularly, especially when their behavior or condition changes. Reassessment means a good systematic suicide assessment again. Know that the patient likely still wants to die. Hope is needed badly.
• A Safe Physical Environment: Psychiatric units are required to remove or secure materials that a patient could use to harm themselves. Ligature points, unsecured medications, and inadequate room checks are all preventable failures. Pretend you are the patient and you want to die. How would you do it? Look around for ways you could kill yourself—the patient is.
• Appropriate Level of Monitoring: Suicidal patients need to be on one-to-one monitoring or line-of-sight at all times. Patients who die in psychiatric hospitals are mostly on every 15-minute monitoring, a dangerous practice. Reducing staffing to cut costs while patients remain at serious risk is a serious breach of the standard of care.
• Safe Discharge Planning: Releasing a patient who is still at elevated risk to go home without a proper safety plan, without follow-up appointments scheduled, and without family notification is one of the most dangerous failures a facility can make. The period after discharge is the most dangerous time for a suicide attempt.

These are not aspirational guidelines. They are the standard of care that courts and medical experts hold psychiatric facilities to, and when hospitals cut corners on any of them, the consequences can be catastrophic. If they are not, the hospital just got lucky.

Why Psychiatric Facilities Fail And Why Accountability Matters

Skip Simpson has spent many years handling these complex cases. The University of Utah study reinforces what our law firm has seen repeatedly: suicide risk among young patients is real, well-documented, and manageable when proper care is provided. The tragedy is that many facilities know the risks and still fail to take adequate action.

The protocols and practices inside many psychiatric hospitals reveals troubling patterns. The odds of any single patient dying by suicide may appear statistically low to administrators or insurers. But when warning signs are ignored, assessments are incompetent, monitoring is inadequate, room checks are rushed, staffing levels are inadequate, or discharge decisions are made too quickly, the risks increase dramatically.

After a death occurs, facilities and insurance carriers often move quickly to defend their decisions. In all cases, they attempt to shift blame onto the patient or the patient’s family rather than confront what the hospital failed to do.

This is why families should keep several important issues in mind:

• Families Are Not To Blame: If a loved one was admitted to a psychiatric facility and died by suicide there, the facility’s conduct, not your family’s choices, is what the law examines.
• Records Often Reveal What Happened: Medical records, staffing logs, room check documentation, and discharge paperwork may show whether the facility followed accepted standards or ignored them. Sometimes these records are altered—we catch them at this crime.
• Time Limits Apply: States impose statutes of limitations on medical malpractice claims. Waiting too long to investigate can permanently affect a family’s ability to pursue accountability.

How We Help Families After Psychiatric Facility Failures

The Law Offices of Skip Simpson represents families across the country who have lost a loved one to suicide following failures in psychiatric care. Attorney Skip Simpson is nationally recognized in this area of law and has handled inpatient suicide cases in dozens of states.

When we take a case, we investigate the facility’s policies, examine staffing decisions, retain independent medical experts, and build the factual record necessary to determine whether the standard of care was violated.

If your family is trying to understand what happened to a loved one inside a psychiatric hospital or mental health facility, we are here to listen and provide a clear explanation of your legal options. You owe us nothing unless we recover compensation for your family. There are no upfront legal fees and no costs to begin the process.

Contact the Law Offices of Skip Simpson for a free, confidential consultation. Families who trusted a psychiatric facility to protect their loved one deserve answers, accountability, and a full understanding of what legal options may be available moving forward.

It’s well known that people with chronic illnesses are at a higher risk of dying by suicide than the general population. And a diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be devastating.

A new South African study has provided troubling insights into the heightened risk of suicide among people living with HIV. It also raises questions regarding the responsibility of HIV clinics and physicians to protect their patients from the risk of suicide.

The link between chronic illness and suicide risk

Numerous studies have shown that chronic illness is linked to a higher suicide risk. For example, a 2017 study found that 17 physical health conditions were associated with increased suicide risk after an adjustment for age and sex, with nine of those associations persisting even when an adjustment was made for mental health and substance use. Among those conditions studied, the three with the highest suicide risk were traumatic brain injury, sleep disorders, and HIV/AIDS.

There are several reasons why chronic illnesses may cause an increase in suicide risk, including:

• Chronic pain and other symptoms: For people living with severe symptoms, suicide may seem like a way to make the pain stop.
• Perceived burdensomeness and loss of independence: People with chronic illnesses can become highly dependent on others, impacting their self-worth and feeding into the false narrative that their loved ones would be better off without them.
• Feelings of hopelessness: An incurable condition can lead to a loss of hope, which in turn can feed into mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.
• Social isolation and loss of enjoyment of life: People with chronic diseases may be unable to participate in social activities, causing their relationships with friends and family to atrophy, and lose the sense of enjoyment and satisfaction from activities they can no longer do due to their condition.
• Medication side effects: Some medications used to treat chronic illnesses may cause or exacerbate suicidal thoughts.

HIV is a particularly challenging chronic illness to live with, so it is little surprise that it has been linked to increased suicide risk. HIV/AIDS can cause a variety of debilitating symptoms, and it is currently impossible to cure. That said, with modern antiretroviral treatments, people with HIV can live long, healthy, and normal lives.

The importance of suicide screening in HIV treatment settings

One of the key insights from the South African study was that most people with HIV who died by suicide had interacted with a healthcare setting within the year before their death. That means there is a real opportunity for clinics and providers to prevent deaths by conducting appropriate suicide screenings.

However, more training is needed to equip doctors and other medical professionals who treat people with HIV to conduct appropriate screenings and refer to appropriate mental health resources. It’s not unusual for physicians who specialize in treating physical health conditions to fail to consider their patients’ mental health, but that should not be the standard of care. Doctors need to treat the whole patient, and that includes taking into account the elevated risk that a chronically ill patient might die by suicide.

If you have lost a loved one due to negligence, we can help

Suicide is preventable, and medical professionals who don’t provide the care at-risk patients need should be held accountable. The Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. If you have lost a loved one, give us a call or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation. We’re based in Texas but serve families throughout the United States.

While we usually think of suicide as a mental health problem, there are important links between physical health, physical injury, and suicide risk. Among those connections is a link between head injuries and suicide risk.

A recent study, published in the American Academy of Neurology’s peer-reviewed journal, shed some light on this connection. While it’s well-known that traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with an increased risk of suicide, this study found that head injuries more generally are also linked to suicide risk.

What the study results showed

The UK-based study compared adults with and without head injuries over a 20-year period, matching them by age, sex, and geographical location. The top-level result was clear: people with head injuries had more suicide attempts, more suicide risk factors, and more deaths by suicide.

The study found that the risk of suicide was highest in the first 12 months after the head injury itself. It also found that people with other suicide risk factors, including a history of mental health conditions and lack of social connection, had particularly elevated risk—but even among those with no other risk factors, head injuries were still correlated with increased risk of suicide.

The study authors suggested that suicide risk assessment and prevention should be used for people with head injuries, especially in the first 12 months after the injury—even in people with no mental health history. These results are important for physicians and other medical professionals who care for people with head injuries, from nurses to neurologists.

Doctors need to take suicide risk into account when caring for injured patients

This study focused on head injuries, but it’s indicative of a larger truth: when treating patients for physical injuries and illnesses, physicians need to be aware of suicide risk factors and conduct appropriate assessments. As we’ve previously written, physical conditions such as traumatic brain injuries, post-partum complications, and chronic pain have all been linked to increased suicidality. Medical professionals who treat people with those conditions need to treat the whole patient, taking into account suicide risk and mental health more generally. The same is true for patients with non-TBI head injuries.

When doctors focus exclusively on physical health and ignore warning signs of suicide or self-harm risk, patients can suffer irreparably. More research is needed on the specific links between injury and suicide risk, as well as the specific interventions that are needed for patients with each type of injury. What is clear, though, is that physicians of all specialties have a critical role to play in suicide prevention.

If you lost a loved one to suicide completion, we can help

Suicide is preventable, and when a medical professional’s failure to provide adequate care leads to death by suicide, accountability is critical. The Law Offices of Skip Simpson fights for families who have lost loved ones throughout the United States.

If you lost a loved one to suicide completion, we would be honored to listen to your story and explain your legal options. Give us a call or contact us online today.

Families in rural communities often face barriers that others never have to consider

Suicide risk is caused by a combination of factors, and many of those factors vary geographically. It’s not surprising, then, that we see suicide rates vary significantly from place to place.

A case study from Michigan sheds light on a national problem: in rural areas, suicide rates are often quite high, sometimes double the risk in more populated areas.

What the Michigan data shows

Data released by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services showed climbing suicide rates across the state, especially among middle-aged residents. While the largest number of suicides were in highly populated parts of the state—after all, that’s where the most people are—on a per capita basis, the data showed that rural counties in the northern part of the state had the highest rates.

The overall suicide rate in Michigan in 2023 was 14.9 suicides per 100,000 residents, according to the data. But some counties have significantly higher rates—Alcona County, which covers a large rural area on the shores of Lake Huron, had 35.4 suicides per 100,000 residents for the decade ending in 2023, which was more than double the statewide rate.

What drives suicide risk in rural areas?

There are two critical characteristics of rural counties that tend to result in more suicides. First, in rural areas, access to mental health services is quite limited. Some residents may need to drive 40 miles or more to access a mental health provider in person.

Telehealth can partially compensate for these problems, but many rural areas also lack reliable internet access, so that is not a feasible solution for a large number of residents. More broadly, rural residents also lack access to the same kinds of broad, supportive social networks that are available in more populated areas.

Second, rural areas have much higher gun ownership than urban and suburban areas. Rural residents at risk of suicide are highly likely to own a gun or have access to a gun. And access to firearms is a major driver of suicide deaths, because guns are much more lethal than any other commonly used suicide method.

In other words, a suicidal person with access to firearms is much more likely to actually complete suicide.

Another driver of suicide risk is the high rate of poverty in many rural areas. Financial stress can increase the risk of suicide, and people living in poverty are less likely to be able to pay for mental health services and other supports, even if they could access them otherwise.

Suicide prevention efforts need to recognize the unique challenges of rural areas

Suicide is preventable (believe it!!), and prevention efforts, which will work, need to be tailored to the needs of different communities. In the case of rural areas, efforts must be made to find ways for residents to reliably access mental health services, given their geographic isolation and lack of infrastructure.

Medical professionals who serve rural areas need to be particularly aware of the risk of suicide, conduct proper screenings, and recommend appropriate, accessible resources. When they don’t, the consequences can be deadly.

The Law Offices of Skip Simpson proudly serves families who have lost loved ones to suicide completion throughout the United States, fighting for accountability and justice. We would be honored to listen to your story and explain your legal rights and options.

Give us a call or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation.

The veteran suicide rate remains twice as high as that of non-veterans

Veterans have made countless sacrifices for our country, and one that doesn’t get enough attention is the toll their service can take on mental health, leading to increased risk of suicide.

A recent study from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah sheds light on what can be done to help at-risk veterans access suicide prevention resources. According to the Institute, personal connection may be the key to unlocking those resources and reducing veterans’ suicide risk.

The suicide crisis among America’s veterans

Veterans have long been known to have a highly elevated suicide risk. According to the Veterans Administration, the veteran suicide rate of 34.7 deaths per 100,000 is about double the suicide rate for non-veteran adults. According to the American Psychological Association, some reasons for this elevated risk include:

• Mental illness associated with military service, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Physical injuries, including traumatic brain injuries (TBI), which can affect mental health.
• Difficulty transitioning back to civilian life—suicide risk among veterans is highest in the years immediately following separation from the military.
• Easy access to and familiarity with guns, which are by far the most lethal and commonly used suicide method.
• Stress, burnout, isolation, and loneliness.

Key findings from the Gardner Institute study

The Gardner Institute’s research found that personal connection plays a vital role in allowing veterans to reach suicide prevention resources. Veterans are more likely to trust information from sources they know personally, including their doctors and therapists, as well as their friends, family, and peers.

The research also showed that overcoming mistrust in mental health resources will be a critical step. For instance, just over one-third of the veterans surveyed said they trusted mental health crisis response services—but a majority of those who had actually used such services said they found the response helpful. In other words, once veterans actually have the opportunity to access services, they are more likely to see the value of those services.

Another key to veteran suicide prevention is simply providing veterans with access to information. The study found that 25% of veterans have never even looked for information on mental health and suicide prevention resources, and 17% are unsure how to access them.

Finally, the study highlighted both systemic and personal barriers to accessing mental health care, including the “warrior ethos” among current and former military members, fear that accessing mental health resources could affect career advancement, and highly practical concerns such as long wait times to access services. Policymakers need to do their part to lower those systemic barriers, and we all need to do our part to end the stigma around mental health treatment, both for veterans and for society at large.

Medical professionals need to be aware of suicide risks and barriers to treatment

Veterans are one of several populations at elevated risk of suicide, and each of those populations has its own unique challenges. Medical professionals who treat patients at risk of suicide need to be aware of the complex, interconnected factors that affect suicide risk. They also need to recognize both the importance of mental health services and the barriers to accessing those services, and work with each patient to overcome those barriers and get them the treatment they need.

Unfortunately, too many medical professionals fail in that responsibility, and the result can be a preventable tragedy. The Law Offices of Skip Simpson is here to advocate for justice for victims and their families. If you have lost a loved one to suicide completion, give us a call or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation. We serve families throughout the United States.

Wrongful Death Case Raises Ethical Questions About AI in Mental Health Support

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Suicide is preventable.

We’re closing out National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month this September, but the truth is that suicide prevention needs to be a year-round focus. People who die by suicide show warning signs beforehand, and if the people in their lives know what to look for, they can intervene. And those efforts are not futile, because suicide is not inevitable. The right interventions can save lives.

This month and every month, let’s remain committed to suicide prevention.

How friends and family can help prevent suicide

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the first step to suicide prevention is to ask if you have reason to suspect someone is thinking about suicide. Remember, study after study has shown that asking about suicide does not increase suicidal behavior or thoughts. To the contrary, asking is the best way to start the conversation and build a connection with someone who is at risk. And that’s critical, because studies have also shown that listening, acknowledging, and talking about suicide can actually help to reduce suicide risk.

Another important step is to limit access to lethal means. Limiting access to firearms is especially important because guns are much deadlier than other commonly used suicide methods. Other lethal means, including knives, medications, and loopables (any item that can be used to make a noose), likewise need to be safely stored to reduce access, especially when the suicidal person is alone.

It’s critical to refer the at-risk person to mental health resources. The 988 Lifeline is a valuable first point of contact for people who are in immediate crisis. Depending on the situation, a person at risk of suicide may need inpatient or outpatient mental health treatment or other medical services.

Finally, loved ones need to follow up and stay connected with the at-risk person. The immediate crisis may have passed, but the underlying issues that led them to become suicidal may still be there, and a lack of connection is one such risk factor. Staying in ongoing, supportive contact after a mental health crisis can dramatically reduce suicide risk.

The role of medical professionals in suicide prevention

As the American Association of Suicidology puts it, suicide is everyone’s business. We all have a role to play in preventing suicide and ensuring that those at risk of dying by suicide get the support and resources they need. However, medical professionals have a particularly significant role to play, both because they work with at-risk people every day, and because they have specialized training and responsibility for their patients’ health.

Unfortunately, it’s far too common for physicians and other medical professionals to fail to take important, medically indicated steps to reduce the risk of patient suicide. When that happens, lives can be lost unnecessarily. Our job is to hold them accountable.

If you have lost a loved one to preventable suicide, contact us

Too many families are left to rebuild their shattered lives after losing a loved one to suicide completion. Our mission is to fight for accountability and justice for those families. We would be honored to listen to your story and explain your legal rights and options.

Contact us online today for a free, confidential consultation with the Law Offices of Skip Simpson. We’re based in Texas and serve families nationwide.

Suicide prevention needs to be a top safety priority in the workplace

Approximately 70% of suicides in the United States are among working-age adults (age 18-64), the majority of whom are currently employed. That means, whether or not a particular suicide is related to work or occurs at work, workplaces have an important role to play in suicide prevention.

As Occupational Health & Safety Magazine reported, this subject has recently gained traction in the construction industry, focusing on the role of safety professionals in preventing worker suicide. Suicide risk in the workplace is a real problem, and managers, coworkers, and safety professionals must do their part to minimize that risk.

Safety professionals need to look beyond physical safety to address mental health as well

When most people think of workplace safety, they likely think of physical safety measures: hard hats, harnesses, warning signs, fire prevention, and security guards, for example. But safety leaders in the workplace need to look beyond those physical measures to take stock of the mental health of their colleagues.

As the Occupational Health & Safety article pointed out, many behaviors that indicate suicide risk may manifest at work, such as isolating from colleagues, expressing feelings of hopelessness, or taking extreme risks. Workplace leaders need to know the warning signs of suicide and respond appropriately. They also need to create a warm, supportive environment where colleagues are comfortable talking about their feelings and asking for help.

These steps are particularly important in occupations with elevated suicide rates, such as mining, construction, entertainment, and agriculture. Furthermore, if a colleague has known suicide risk factors, such as chronic pain or a history of depression or self-harm, safety leaders should be particularly attentive to those risks.

Employers can provide important resources to help employees manage suicide risk

While employers need to maintain appropriate boundaries when dealing with employees’ mental health, there is still a great deal they can do to help reduce the risk of suicide, such as:

• Training managers and safety professionals in suicide prevention techniques, such as the QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) method. (Full disclosure. Skip Simpson is honored to be on the faculty of the QPR Institute.)
• Providing resources for employees, such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), that can assist with mental health issues.
• Providing flexible schedules and time off for employees to attend counseling or receive medical treatment.
• Cultivating a supportive, open environment for employees.
• Promptly addressing any workplace issues that can increase suicide risk, including workplace harassment and abuse.

Ultimately, however, employers are not their employees’ healthcare providers. Employers can provide resources and flexibility, and they can encourage at-risk employees to get help, but it’s up to medical professionals to actually treat the causes of suicide risk and keep their patients safe. When they fail in that responsibility, lives can be lost.

We stand up for families who have lost loved ones to suicide completion

Suicide is preventable, and when medical professionals fail to protect their patients, The Law Offices of Skip Simpson works to hold them accountable. If you have lost a loved one to suicide completion, we would be honored to listen to your story and explain your options. Our consultation is free and confidential, and there is no obligation to hire us if we determine there is a viable case. Give us a call or contact us online today. We’re based in Texas but represent families nationwide.

New research links digital addiction to suicidal thoughts and behavior

Increasing use of social media, video games, and mobile phones has touched so many aspects of life, and suicide risk is no exception.

A study released last month explored the link between child and adolescent use of electronic devices and mental health problems, and specifically focused on addictive use. The findings were troubling: addictive use is very common, and it’s also associated with elevated risk of suicidal ideation and behavior.

Breaking down the study results

The recent study followed over 4,000 adolescents from 2016 to 2022, analyzing each participant’s social media, mobile phone, and video game use over a four-year period. In addition to looking at total screen time, the study examined addictive use, defined as “when individuals experience difficulty stopping despite attempts to do so, as well as symptoms of withdrawal, tolerance, and relapse.”

The findings were striking. High percentages of adolescents exhibited concerning behaviors, including:

• 48% reported losing track of how much they are using their phones
• 25% said they use social media to forget about their problems
• 25% admit to spending considerable time thinking about social media
• 17% admitted trying unsuccessfully to reduce their social media use
• 11% reported negative effects on schoolwork

Most frighteningly, adolescents with high or increasing addictive use saw an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and suicidal behaviors. This was true across all screen types (mobile phones, video games, and social media) and appeared to have a significantly greater impact than baseline screen time.

The link between digital media and suicide risk

We’ve previously discussed the link between cyberbullying and suicide risk among adolescents. Indeed, cyberbullying may be more dangerous than offline bullying, in part because it’s so pervasive. While offline bullying usually ends at the end of the school day, cyberbullying follows teens everywhere they go, because their phones are always on.

The same could be said for other negative effects of social media: addictive phone use is pervasive, and its effects on mental health aren’t easily shaken. This is one of the rising forces behind, for example, cellphone bans in schools, to give students a lengthy break from phone use, as The Lion reported.

“The statistics really do hold that if we do the (full day), bell to bell, that’s going to have the biggest turnaround,” said one lawmaker.

“This is not just an academic bill. This is a mental health bill,” said another.

Beyond curbing phone use itself, though, we need to be aware of the effects of technology on children and teens’ mental health and, in particular, their risk of dying by suicide.

Medical professionals who work with teens need to be aware of phone use as a suicide risk factor and adjust their screening methods and interventions accordingly. Suicide risk is complex, but it can be measured, assessed, and mitigated in order to save lives.

If you have lost a loved one to suicide completion, we can help

Suicide is preventable, and too many families are left to pick up the pieces in the wake of a preventable suicide. If you have lost a child or another loved one to suicide, we would be honored to listen to your story and explain your rights and options, free of charge.

Contact the Law Offices of Skip Simpson today. We serve families throughout the United States.