The prevention of suicide and suicide attempts remains a challenge for clinicians in Health Care provision. Suicide and attempted suicide (now usually termed “deliberate self-harm” or “self-harm” in the United Kingdom) are major problems in most countries in the world. Overall there are more than 800,000 suicides per year worldwide. (University of Oxford, Centre for Suicide Research). Each year in Northern Ireland there are approximately 150 deaths by suicide and approximately 6,000 in the United Kingdom as a whole. (Health Promotion Agency, Northern Ireland). This exceeds the number of people killed in road traffic accidents.

In Northern Ireland the suicide rate is 9 per 100,000, in the Republic of Ireland it is 12 per 100,000 compared to the United Kingdom’s 7 per 100,000. Internationally Latvia has the highest rate of 29 per 100,000, followed by Hungary at 28 and Estonia at 25.