With the Paralympic Games fast approaching, the people with disabilities gain more attention than ever before. However, we should not ignore another group of people, who also urgently need our help. Here is a hint: September 10 was the World Suicide Prevention Day.

As a serious, complicated social phenomenon, suicide has become a public health and social issue that arouses concern worldwide. According to WHO statistics, the global suicide rate stands at 14.5 deaths per 100,000. Thus WHO and International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) jointly launched the first World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10, 2003. The sixth World Suicide Prevention Day is launched this year, with the theme “Think Globally, Plan Nationally, Act Locally”, aiming at arousing people’s concern about this social phenomenon and reducing suicide cases.

Suicide is also one of the leading causes of death in China. Every year, about 250,000 people die of suicide, whilst approximately 2 million people survive suicide attempts.

Suicide has been a pernicious social phenomenon since very ancient times. It is mainly caused by mental diseases, illnesses, personality defects, psychological factors, suicide(s) within the family, and living and working conditions for the family and individuals. Besides, suicide is associated with people’s mental health problems. Scientific research findings reveal the fact that 50% of those who died of suicide suffered from depression, emotional obstacles, schizophrenia, uncontrollable anxiety, and alcohol abuse or dependence before their death; consequently, they are more inclined to commit suicide and have higher fatality rate than general population. If a depression sufferer has chronic illness such as aches and pains and heart disease, or incurable disease like cancer, s/he would be at higher risk for suicide. As regards people who have physical defects and body function impairment such as disfigurement, malformation, and epilepsy, they rely comparatively heavily on the others, leading to a significantly high risk of suicide whenever they feel frustrated and despair of the future.

So far there has been no perfect solution for preventing suicide because it is a complex individual psychological behavior and affected by a series of potential dangerous factors; nevertheless, it is possible to reduce suicide risk through pertinent crisis interventions, including the launch of World Suicide Prevention Day aimed to disseminate knowledge about mental health, make people aware of the dangerous factors that may incite suicide, carry out psychological consultancy to deal with crisis, recommend people to seek help from mental health professionals, and appeal to the whole society to create a more delightful, tolerant, harmonious social environment which is beneficial to people’s mental health. Nowadays, as the society, government’s attitude and citizens’ mental health are improving, the suicide rate in China has begun to decline. A psychological crisis research and intervention center and a 24-hour charge-free consultancy hotline 8008101117 have been set up at Hui Long Guan Hospital. Our experts are willing to help you overcome the psychological crisis.