Click HERE to see the complete version of the Survey!!
Dear Section Members, first we would like to thank you for your active participation in the survey!
Then, we would like to share its main findings; thanks to your answers we have now a good idea of our interests and profiles in the EPA-SSSP section. About half of Section Members (58 people) completed the survey, and considering that this survey was the first “experiment” of this kind, we believe it is a very good result.
As we already knew, the section is mainly composed by psychiatrists or psychologists with a longstanding experience in the field (almost half of the sample reports more than 15 years of experience). Anyway, we believe it is a source of pride that also other professionals are involved, proving the open-mindedness of the Section and the interest that suicide elicits beyond psychiatric and psychological settings. Another source of pride is the participation of many young professionals, whom we hope will be willing to dedicate their energy and commitment to the Section’s activities, in a virtuous cycle aimed at mutual growth and development.
The clinical experience of our members covers all clinical settings, especially providing outpatient and inpatient services. Moreover, although most of us work with adult patients, 10% of the section is specialized in children or adolescents and 20% on elderly populations, and as we all know, the populations of adolescents and of the elderly may be particularly at risk for suicidal behavior.
It also seems that our Members are very busy in their working activity, with an all-encompassing commitment, which spans from research, to clinical practice (72%) and training (50%). The main research topics in suicidology are prevention, epidemiology and psychosocial issues, in this order. However, the number of interests in research is impressive. Indeed, apart from research topics directly oriented to suicidology, section members have signaled almost 50 other research topics of interest. On the other hand, training in suicidology seemed to involve less than half of respondents. Since our Section includes experienced and skilled clinicians and researchers, we should consider the enhancement of the training issue as one of our priorities in the next years.
The opinion on different training approaches is balanced. All methods were found interesting by 30% or more of the respondents. Seminars and lectures were the preferred ones (around 60%), but also interactive sessions seemed to raise interest. Finally, since the Section would not exist without its Members and their active involvement, we were glad to see that many of you indicated their interest to contribute in the Section’s activities, especially to participate in multicenter studies (80%), meta-analysis/reviews (70%) or training (50%).
EPA Section of Suicidology and Suicide Prevention 