The Role of Primary Physicians in Preventing Suicide: Possibilities, Short-Comings, and the Challenge in Reaching Male Suicides (IN: Suicide Prevention: Resource for the Millennium, edited by D Lester)

This chapter reviews the role of primary physicians in the prevention of suicide with a specific focus on the education program carried out in 1983-84 in Gotland. General practitioners were offered a structured & long-term program on the multi-dimensional process of becoming depressed & suicidal & recovering from it. Positive outcomes & problems & failures with this program are briefly discussed. The chapter also includes a discussion of male suicidality. The chapter ends with a discussion of future challenges in suicide prevention. (18 refs.)