Reducing the risk of patient suicide in Tuscany

Giulia Dagliana; Sara Albolino; Laura Belloni; Tommaso Bellandi

doi:10.1192/bji.2020.43

Reducing the risk of patient suicide in Tuscany

BJPsych Int. 2020 Nov;17(4):82-85. doi: 10.1192/bji.2020.43.

Authors

Giulia Dagliana¹, Sara Albolino², Laura Belloni³, Tommaso Bellandi⁴

Affiliations

¹ MSc, Safety and Quality Manager, Coordinator WHO Collaborating Centre in Human Factor and Communication for the Delivery of Safe and Quality Care, Florence, Italy.
² PhD-EurErg, Director, Centre for Clinical Risk Management and Patient Safety, Florence, Italy.
³ MD, Psychiatrist, Director of the Centre for Relational Issues of the Teaching Hospital Careggi, Florence, Italy.
⁴ PhD, PhD-EurErg, Director, Patient Safety Unit of the Tuscany Northwest Tuscany, Italy. Email: tommasobellandi@gmail.com.

Abstract

Patient suicide is one of the most frequent incidents in healthcare facilities to be reported to the National Observatory of Sentinel Events in Italy. Despite national initiatives, in Tuscany potentially preventable patient suicides still occur in both acute and community care settings. We describe here an aggregated qualitative analysis of 14 patient suicides that took place in public health services between 2017 and 2018. We outline the methodology and results of an improvement action we enacted in the healthcare system that involved reviewing and reinforcing relevant managerial strategies and clinical activities, with the aim of reducing potentially preventable patient suicides.

Keywords: Patient suicide; patient safety; prevention; reporting and learning; thematic analysis.