An exploration into suicide prevention initiatives for mental health nurses: A systematic literature review

Mental health and suicide prevention are national health priorities in Australia, with research currently focussed towards the ZERO Suicide (ZS) initiative. The aim of this review was to evaluate the impact of suicide prevention programmes, in particular the ZS prevention initiative. A systematic review using the PRISMA guidelines was conducted using six EBSCO Host databases; Academic Search Complete, Australian/New Zealand Reference Centre, CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE, APA PsycINFO, and APA Psyc Articles. The data extracted from the eligible papers were analysed using a thematic approach. The final data set consisted of fourteen (n = 14) peer-reviewed articles meeting the eligibility criteria, which included quantitative (n = 10), mixed methods (n = 2), and qualitative studies (n = 2). Results indicated variances between suicide prevention programmes with some papers examining single workshops and others assessing multimodal, organizational interventions. Five major themes were produced from this review including measuring the success of suicide prevention programmes, improvements to the delivery of suicide prevention programmes, barriers to implementing changes, cultural considerations, and further research required for suicide prevention programmes. This review concludes that further long-term research is required to evaluate the implementation and efficacy of suicide prevention programmes in health care. Cultural awareness in suicide prevention training is another area that may benefit from further research. A growing body of evidence establishes the need for multimodal and organizational approaches for suicide prevention initiatives.