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The Spanish Society of Primary Care Physicians (SEMERGEN), in collaboration with PulseLife, has launched a free application for healthcare professionals that detects the level of suicide risk in patients, based on clinical guidelines.

In 2022, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, 4277 Spaniards took their own lives, making suicide the leading external cause of death. Meanwhile, a survey conducted among healthcare professionals by SEMERGEN, and PulseLife indicated that 65% of doctors claim not to have the necessary knowledge to identify suicide risk in their patients. Primary care physicians unanimously demanded a clinical tool to assist them.

With the aim of meeting this need, inApp has been created within the PulseLife platform, which can be used on mobile devices and personal computers. It can be accessed free of charge with prior registration as a healthcare professional.

"In the past 5 years, the increase in suicide has been very high and has become a public health problem: There are more deaths by suicide than by traffic accidents," Manuel José Mejías Estevez, MD, a family physician, psychotherapist, and member of SEMERGEN, told Univadis Spain. He is also one of the developers of the application. "The objective has been to create a simple tool to help any healthcare professional detect suicide risk in the patient," he said. "This application incorporates a simple algorithm and various useful sections, such as myths about suicide, key ideas, or characteristics of suicide according to age." With all the information obtained, the application provides a probable level of suicide risk in the patient (high, medium-high, medium, low, or no risk) and guides the physician on what to do: Schedule more appointments, make a scheduled consultation, or refer him or her to a mental health specialist.

This clinical tool uses an algorithm that assesses risk through a series of short questions to the physician. "There are four steps: Whether there is suspicion of suicide risk or not, whether there is hopelessness or not, whether suicidal ideation is detected or not, and whether a method is being planned," said Mejías. "Hopelessness is a key point and is defined based on questions that the physician asks to assess the desire to live. What goals does the person have? What hopes does the person have? If the individual has no expectations for the future and sees everything very bleak, even if they do not have depression, further exploration is needed to see if they have suicidal thoughts, with questions like 'Would you like to disappear and never come back?'" he added.

The physician also points out that certain factors that increase the risk for suicide should be considered, including "whether there has been any change in behavior or attitude, if there is substance abuse, if there is depression, and if the family environment is disadvantaged or has social and economic problems." Based on the responses, the program displays a table with the degree of suicide risk in which the individual could be and suggests how to proceed.

The tool also includes a section dedicated to myths about suicide that are spread through social networks, media, and work and family environments. "One of the most important myths is that there must be mental illness to consider suicide; another myth is to think that older people do not commit suicide, or that suicide cannot be prevented, or to think that if the person does not verbalize that they want to commit suicide, they will not do it, when it is just the opposite. That is, those who commit suicide most frequently are those who do not say anything, although they do show signs such as hopelessness," said the physician.

This story was translated from Univadis Spain, which is part of the Medscape professional network, using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.