Research Article
Development and Implementation of an Interprofessional Workshop to Address the Professional and Emotional Needs of Clinicians
Following a Patient near Fatal Suicide Attempt
Sara Figueroa, Gregory W Dalack
Correspondence Address :
Sara Figueroa
Department
of Psychiatry
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor,
Michigan 48109
USA
Tel: +1 734-764-0231
Email:
gsrd@med.umich.edu
Received on: September 05, 2018, Accepted on: September 11, 2018, Published on: September 19, 2018
Citation: Sara Figueroa, Gregory W Dalack (2018). Development and Implementation of an Interprofessional Workshop to Address the Professional and Emotional Needs of Clinicians Following a Patient near Fatal Suicide Attempt
Copyright: 2018 Sara Figueroa, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: Coping with the loss of a patient who ends his or her life by suicide is one of the most challenging experiences faced by clinicians. A patient near fatal suicide attempt (NFSA), defined here as a suicide attempt that leads to ICU treatment, occurs frequently, is quite complicated, though important gaps in the literature exist to better address provider experiences and professional needs in these cases.
Aim: To adapt a regularly scheduled departmental postvention workshop to address clinician experiences in coping with NFSA.
Methods: The workshop agenda includes case presentations of NFSA, small group work and a final discussion in the plenary. This paper describes the development of the workshop and the pre- and post -survey responses to quantitative and qualitative questionnaires on NFSA.
Results: The survey results identified areas of distress by discipline, gender, and experience of clinicians in cases of NFSA.
Limitations: This study included a convenience sample of clinicians across disciplines.
Conclusion: The workshop surveys examined a gap in the literature regarding the potential needs of clinicians professionally and personally with a NFSA. Understanding, sharing and learning from individual clinician experiences of NFSA in a workshop setting can provide clinicians with a useful means of postvention support, education, and guidance. Such a workshop can benefit clinicians in psychiatry, and can also be broadened to any clinic, academic, inpatient or outpatient setting where patient acuity and risk for self-harm are high.
Keywords: Suicide Attempt, Near-Fatal, Postvention, Survey, Clinician Support