General practitioners' perspectives regarding suicide prevention: a systematic scoping review.

Abstract

Background: Suicide is a major public health issue. Up to a third of patients will visit their General Practitioner (GP) in the month leading up to a suicide attempt, thus highlighting the key role GPs play in suicide prevention.

Aim: This systematic scoping review aimed to explore the qualitative research on GPs' perspectives of suicide prevention in primary care.

Design & setting: A systematic scoping review of qualitative studies relating to the research question.

Method: This review is reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidance. Articles at full-text review were assessed for inclusion in the study against eligibility criteria (english language, qualitative research, focus on GPs perspectives of suicide prevention). Data were extracted using a standardised form and a thematic synthesis approach was used to describe the themes elicited from the studies.

Results: 2210 abstracts were screened. Twelve studies from seven countries were included at full text review. Four main themes were elicited: challenges to managing suicidal behaviour, fragmented relationships with mental health services, personal attitudes of GPs regarding suicidal behaviour and identified needs to improve suicide prevention in primary care.

Conclusion: Understanding GPs' perspectives can lead to improved training, resources, and support for primary care professionals, who are frontline providers of mental healthcare. This scoping review suggested there is a lack of evidence around what approaches GPs find effective in managing suicidality and how relationships can be strengthened with mental health services to deliver person-centred integrated care for those identified at risk of suicide.