Mar 16, 2016
Adam Hoffberg interviews Dr. Peter Gutierrez about an editorial by Dr Declan Murray in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open (DOI: 10.1192/bjpo.bp.115.002071) in which Dr Murray discusses abandoning suicide risk assessment.
Excellent discussion on a very important paper.
Intrinsic to the definition of risk is the idea of prediction. If prediction is not possible we should stop using the term risk. As Dr Guttierrez infers, a patient presenting with the language of suicide is saying he is in a state of distress which, in some cases, though not all, may be alleviated by mental health treatment.