Intervention studies in suicide prevention research.
BACKGROUND
Despite the growing strength of the field of suicidology, various commentators have recently noted that insufficient effort is being put into intervention research, and that this is limiting our knowledge of which suicide prevention strategies might be the most effective.


OBJECTIVE
To profile the types of studies currently being undertaken by suicide prevention researchers from around the world, in order to examine the relative balance between intervention studies and other types of research.


METHODS
We searched the abstract books from the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Congresses of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and the 10th, 11th, and 12th European Symposia on Suicide and Suicidal Behavior (held between 2003 and 2008), and classified the abstracts in them according to a modified version of an existing taxonomy.


RESULTS
We screened 1209 abstracts and found that only 12% described intervention studies.


CONCLUSIONS
We need to redouble our efforts and make intervention studies our priority if we are to combat the global problem of suicide.
Department of Clinical Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, <location>Amsterdam, The Netherlands</location>
Annemiek
A
Huisman
Jane
J
Pirkis
Jo
J
Robinson
D000043:Abstracting and Indexing / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D017594:Publication Bias; D012107:Research Design / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012958:Societies, Scientific; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000092864:Suicide Prevention