Effectiveness of Suicide Prevention: a Short Review of the Literature (IN: Current Issues of Suicidology, ed. by H J Moller, A Schmidtke & R Welz)

The abundant literature on the work of suicide prevention programs and institutions contains only a few investigations into the effectiveness of such services. Epidemiologic methods have been used to examine the influence of suicide prevention programs on the incidence of suicide in the area they serve. Clinical research has been directed to the evaluation of treatment schemes in patient samples. In this overview, problems and results of both types of investigations are summarized.