Suicide Response Guidelines for Residency Trainees: A Novel Postvention Response for the Care and Teaching of Psychiatry Residents who Encounter Suicide in Their Patients.

Abstract

Suicide is an event that is almost universally encountered by psychiatrists and psychiatry residents. Because psychiatric patients are at a higher risk for completing suicide than patients of other specialties, psychiatry residents are at risk for experiencing the suicide of a patient during their training. A review of the literature shows that there is continually growing research into the negative emotional effects of patient suicides on psychiatry residents and the need for clear response protocols when a suicide occurs, also known as postvention protocols. However, there are no Graduate Medical Education requirements to specifically train psychiatry residents about this, even with a well-voiced desire by residents to receive this training. In the National Capitol Consortium Psychiatry Residency, encounters with patient suicides by residents in a time of war led us to a place in which interventions were designed and instituted to care for the caregiver, in this case focusing on psychiatry trainees. Our process and product, described here, offers an example of a systematic postvention response. It addresses aspects of what is known in the research base, combined with acknowledgement of the human response and the institutional need for a consistent and objective response.