A well thought through approach to suicide risk has been recently debated in the Lancet (Iqbal, 2023). The author comments that current suicide prediction measures are ineffective, although the assessment of suicide risk allows for a systematic approach. However, an approach called the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) Framework (and its guiding clinical tool, the Suicide Status Form) has been shown to significantly reduce risk.
This is a comprehensive medical record and multipurpose roadmap for guiding the assessment, stabilisation-planning, and suicide-focused treatment of patients, with additional documentation for all interim care through to disposition.
CAMS is a proven therapeutic intervention within inpatient and community settings that reduces suicidal ideation, symptom distress, and hopelessness in as few as six to eight weekly sessions. The US Centers for Disease Control described it as a well supported intervention for suicidal ideation.
At NAViGO (the UK National Health Service [NHS] mental health provider for North East Lincolnshire, England), CAMS was implemented in April 2018, and since then no deaths by suicide have been recorded for patients in the region whose presenting suicidality was treated in line with the CAMS intervention.
Iqbal recommended that NICE should review the extensive clinical trial evidence supporting CAMS, to enable this life-saving intervention to be endorsed within the guidelines, decrease suicidal suffering, and save lives.
