World Suicide Prevention Day is observed each year on 10th September. It seeks to raise awareness about the fact that suicide can be prevented. It also aims to highlight what individuals, families, and communities can do to prevent it.
Suicide is a grave public health problem that has very detrimental effects on individuals, families, and communities as a whole and this day aims to spread awareness on how to arrest it.
The World Suicide Prevention Day is organized by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to reports, one life is lost every 40 seconds due to suicide. Around 800,000 people die by suicide each year. Further, for every death caused by suicide, there are 20 suicide attempts. Also, suicide is one of the leading causes of death among 15-29-year-olds. Aren’t these numbers appalling?
Theme for World Suicide Prevention Day 2019
The theme for the World Suicide Prevention Day 2019 is ‘Working Together To Prevent Suicide.’
Because suicide is such a complex problem, its prevention involves collaborative and comprehensive efforts between various sectors of the society such as the government, education, law, and media. The theme for this day seeks to highlight the importance of various sectors working in harmony to prevent this problem.
How to prevent suicide?
There are two major ways of preventing suicide: first, to reduce factors that cause a risk and second, to increase factors that promote resilience and coping mechanism.
Here are a few methods to prevent suicides among your near and dear ones:
- Encourage people under depression to seek help.
- Identify people that are at risk and support them.
- Look out for warning signs such as extreme mood swings, talking about suicide, massive withdrawal from social life and other people, and extreme self-loathing and self-hatred.
- Implement strategies at national and community level for prevention and promotion of mental health.
- Don’t be afraid to ask a person whom you suspect is suicidal. Subsequently, listen to them and get appropriate help for them by meeting a psychologist or calling a crisis helpline.
- Teach coping and resilience-building from school.
This World Suicide Prevention Day, let’s pledge to do our best to ensure that deaths due to suicide reduce.
