Suicide Prevention in the Army
Maurizio Pompili(1,2), Silvia Rigucci(1), Daniela Di Cosimo(1), Melania Pugliese(1), Silvia Pontremolesi(1), Laura Sapienza(1), Marco Innamorati(3) and David Lester(4)
(1)Suicide Prevention Center, Dept. of Psychiatry, Sant’Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; (2)McLean Hospital – Harvard Medical School, USA; (3)Universitá Europea di Roma, Italy, (4)The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA
Suicide in the Military. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009, 210 pages.
Suicide is one of the greatest problems of maladjustment to the military environment. This chapter summarizes findings on demographic factors and main risk factors for suicide and provides a set of guidelines for improving prevention. The chapter dealing with the problem of suicidal behavior in military environment gives a recent literature review of different prevention approaches. Mostly, the model of prevention is based on screening, education of the responsible officers, training of the vulnerable risk groups, and follow-up procedures. Nowadays, the rate of suicide in the army is significantly lower with respect to past years, probably due to the implementation of specific suicide prevention programs.