Suicide and Self-Injury: Prevention, Identification, and Patient Care

Dear Colleagues,

Suicide is at the top of the list of the most common causes of death. More than 700,000 people die by suicide every year, and suicide is the fourth-leading cause of death among 15–29 year olds (WHO, 2023). People with mental disorders (e.g., depression and alcohol use) and vulnerable groups who often experience violence, abuse, loss, isolation, or discrimination (such as refugees and migrants, indigenous peoples, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people, or prisoners) are particularly at risk of suicide. At the same time, many suicides are committed impulsively in moments of crisis due to financial problems, relationship problems, or chronic pain and illness. There is also a link between self-harming behaviors and suicide: even if only a minority of self-harmers are suicidal, people who self-harm are more likely to die by suicide, and self-harm is seen in 40–60% of suicides. The WHO has recognized suicide as a public health priority and has placed suicide prevention high on the global public health agenda.

This Special Issue of Healthcare aims to provide clinicians and researchers with evidence-based recommendations on which interventions should be used in (culturally adapted) prevention, recognition, assessment, and treatment in suicidality and self-harm.

For this Special Issue, I would like to invite you to submit original research and systematic reviews on preventive, diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic pathways in suicidality and self-harm. The scope includes intervention studies and studies on diagnosis and prognosis in the general population or in vulnerable groups. Both clinical studies and health service research-orientated contributions are welcome.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Markus Stingl
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• suicidality
• self harm
• prevention
• therapy
• assessment