Comparison of accomplished suicides with persons contacting a crisis intervention clinic.

Abstract

Hitchcock and Wolford (1970) criticize the suicide prevention center model of suicide intervention on several grounds, including the assertion that such centers do nor come into contact with potentially suicidal persons. Lester (1971) criticizes the Hitchcock and Wolford paper on the grounds that only two inconclusive studies, those of Bagley (1968) and Weiner (1969), have dealt directly with this issue. The purpose of this study was to test Hitchcock and Wolford's contention that suicide prevention centers do not reach suicidal persons, based on the local crisis clinic's experience since its inception in September of 1969, through December of 1971. The K-W Crisis Intervention Clinic is a major, professionally staffed 24-h. center: providing a wide range of services, available to the public both by phone and personal conncc. It is located centrally in a large general hospital in a twin cities area of 142,000 persons and is the only crisis clinic, as such, in the area. Its current volume of contacts numbers some 190 per month. Since the inception of the clinic's activities, there have been 29 deaths by suicide in the area.3 A comparison of Crisis Clinic records with police records, however, under conditions that scrupulously preserved suicided persons' anonymity, showed that only two of the 29 persons had had contact with the clinic, whatever other contact they might have had with helping sources. Unhappy as these results are, and whatever future experience might hold, Hitchcock and Wolford's contention is strongly borne out in this center's experience to date, and suggests that change in the present model or other approaches may be needed to reach potentially suicidal persons.