Centre for Suicide Research, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK; South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
Lancet Public Health. 2024 Oct;9(10):e796-e801. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00157-9. Epub 2024 Sep 10.
One of the most effective public health measures to prevent suicide is the restriction of access to means used in suicidal acts. This approach can be especially effective if a method is common and readily accessible. Suicide methods vary widely, and there have been several examples where means restriction has been applied, often with considerable success. Factors contributing to availability of suicide methods can include access to physical means as well as cognitive awareness of methods. In this paper, which is the second in a Series on a public health approach to suicide prevention, we focus primarily on examples of restricting access to physical means of suicide, such as pesticides, firearms, and medication. We also discuss restricting the cognitive availability of means through attention to media and other representations of suicide methods. There are challenges associated with restricting access to means, including resistance to measures required to change the availability of some methods (which might, in part, be commercially determined) and method substitution, whereby one suicide method is replaced by another. Nevertheless, means restriction must be an integral part of all national and local suicide prevention strategies.
预防自杀的最有效公共卫生措施之一是限制自杀行为中使用的手段。如果一种方法很常见且易于获得，这种方法尤其有效。自杀方法多种多样，有几个例子表明限制手段的应用通常非常成功。导致自杀方法可获得的因素包括对物理手段的获取以及对自杀方法的认知意识。在本文中，这是预防自杀的公共卫生方法系列的第二篇，我们主要关注限制接触自杀的物理手段的例子，如杀虫剂、枪支和药物。我们还讨论了通过关注媒体和其他自杀方法的表现来限制认知手段的可用性。限制手段的可获得性存在挑战，包括对改变某些方法（部分可能是商业决定）的可获得性所需措施的抵制，以及方法替代，即用另一种自杀方法代替一种方法。尽管如此，手段限制必须成为所有国家和地方自杀预防策略的一个组成部分。
