Doctors Often Fail to Spot Suicidal Patients

A new study indicates that if you are feeling suicidal, it is very important to communicate this with your doctor rather than waiting for him to figure it out because doctors often miss the tell-tale signs.

In the study, researchers recruited 152 doctors from California and Rochester, NY to take part. All were told that they would get unannounced visits from actors portraying patients and that their conversations would be recorded. Eighteen actresses visited the doctors masquerading as either a depressed patient or a patient with an adjustment disorder. Some of the "patients" also asked for medication. The researchers found that only 36 percent of the physicians asked the actresses about suicidal thoughts.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Mitchell Feldman, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, cites statistics showing that 75 percent of people who commit suicide visited a primary-care provider in the 30 days before killing themselves. "There is often a window of opportunity for doctors to screen for suicidality and intervene appropriately, but, as we found, they frequently miss this opportunity," Feldman said.

The findings are published in the September/October issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

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