Évaluation du risque suicidaire. Entre analyse théorique et applications en pratique clinique

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s and its recognition as a “public health priority”, suicide has remained at the centre of various mental health policies. With one of the highest suicide deaths at the European level, France is particularly impacted by this issue. The predictability of a self-aggressive act remains the main concern for a patient in suicidal crisis. The Dangerous Emergency Risk Assessment, established at the consensus conference in October 2000, marked a turning point in the analysis of suicidal risk. Through a triple evaluation corresponding to each of its three items, this tool has made it possible to better clarify the proposed therapeutic management and in particular the decision or not of a hospitalization. However, the latter remaining perfectible in its analysis, a mapping of key points at the clinical level has been proposed in this article in order to have the widest possible vision of a patient in suicidal crisis. The assessment of suicidal potential remains subject, despite everything, to a part of improbability. As such, a brief hospitalization in the context of the suicidal crisis has all its interest whether in front of a suicidal person or in front of a suicidal person, this in the absence of a decompensated psychiatric pathology, in order to allow a “distance” from the anxiety-provoking environment and to create a bond of trust facilitating outpatient work.