Lecture 8 Flashcards
What is a risk?
- Something that can cause harm to themselves, others or the community
- Vulnerability
- Disengagement with services
- Child safety
- Relapse
What is new age thinking?
Move from:
- Prediction to prevention
- Short term discharge to long term planning
How to assess risk
- Be direct and unambiguous >are you thinking about suicide? >are you going to end your life? - Consider your language - Try to avoid: >you're not thinking of killing yourself/do something stupid are you?
How to formulate risk
- Risk status (the person’s risk relative to a specified subpopulation)
- Risk state (person’s risk compared to baseline or other specified time points)
- Available resources (from which the person can draw in crisis)
- Foreseeable changes (that could exacerbate risk)
What is risk status?
- Is risk higher or lower than the general population?
- Is risk higher or lower than other individuals in your practice setting/inpatient setting
What is risk state?
- Is risk to this individual higher than their baseline?
- Is their risk higher than a selected period of time
- Goal is to gauge the intervention necessary to decrease immediate risk
What is SLAP?
- Suicidality
- Lethality
- Access
- Plan
What is suicidality?
Explore thoughts of suicide
- “have you ever thought of ending it all?”
- “In the past 2 weeks, how many times did you think of killing yourself?”
What is lethality?
When a person has admitted that he/she it is wanting to end it all, you can ask questions like:
- “How are you going to kill yourself?”
- Determine how lethal the plan is
>passive - I don’t want to wake up
>active - I want to drive my car off a cliff
- If they respond saying “I don’t know” you can identify the problem as less likely to be an immediate one
What does access mean?
- Do you have the means to carry out your plan?
- What kind of pills do you have?
- If they mention a gun: “Do you have bullets for it? Where is it?”
What does plan mean?
- Do you have a plan?
- What are you planning to do?
- When would you carry out the plan?
- Do you have a date an a time?
- Who would you want to find you?