A Proposed Approach to Suicide Prevention in Japan: the use of Self-Perceived Symptoms as Indicators of Depression and Suicidal Ideation

The Japanese government established the goal of reducing the annual number of suicides to 22,000 by 2010; towards this end, several programs have been proposed. However, the number of suicides has not declined over the past 10 years. Achieiving the goal in the remaining years will require extensive & consistent campaigns dealing with the issues & problems underlying suicide, as well as simple screening methods for detecting depression. In this paper, the authors propose a strategy for the early detection of suicide risk by screening for depression according to self-perceived symptoms. (54 refs.)