Generating Strategies and Materials to Support Suicide Intervention and Prevention in the Fire Service

Details

• Personal Author:
  Gist R ; Taylor V
• Description:
  The Second Fire Service Suicide and Depression Summit was held at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland in October 2013, and attended by approximately forty representatives of fire service organizations interested in suicide, behavioral health, and occupational health issues. The sessions focused on building a strategic plan for developing, implementing, disseminating, and evaluating targeted programs for prevention of suicide, screening for suicide risk, intervention with individuals showing acute risk, and support for organizations and coworkers dealing with a suicide among their own. The twenty-five recommendations developed in the first summit (held in 2011) were kept in mind and further refined at the 2013 gathering. The meeting took place over two days: Day 1. Subject Matter Expert Presentations: Dr. Kimberly Van Orden of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry provided a thorough review of current evidence based best practices in suicide prevention and intervention. Dr. Patricia Watson of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (NCPTSD) of the U.S. Veterans Administration provided an overview of peer driven programs in military settings with potential applicability to fire service and EMS application. Dr. Angela Moreland from the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVC) at the Medical University of South Carolina provided an overview of innovative new programs to assist both peers and clinicians in developing the information and skills needed to effectively assist fire service organizations and their personnel. Day 2. Setting an Action Agenda The remainder of the second summit was spent in facilitated consensus building to put forward an outline of specific projects and actions to support suicide awareness, surveillance, prevention, intervention, and recovery in fire service settings. Using the stated objectives as a starting point and employing both the information provided through the expert reviews and the collaborative input of the expert presenters, several specific projects were outlined for development and dissemination under the aegis of Everyone Goes Home(R) Firefighter Life Safety Initiative 13: 1. NFFF should support specific research to enhance our understanding of suicide in the fire service and should lead the way in knowledge translation projects to bring empirically supported best practices to fire service organizations and personnel. 2. Design, implement, and evaluate a broad, multilayered marketing campaign (including social media) promoting mutual support and action. 3. Advocate adding basic mental health screening to NFPA 1582 annual medical evaluation. 4. Develop, disseminate, and evaluate adaptation of the Wintersteen protocol for primary care screening to be employed by fire department physicians as a specific element of suicide screening and prevention. 5. Develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate one or more additional modules for Helping Heroes website covering issues of suicide and depression for clinicians serving fire service populations. 6. Material should be developed, implemented, evaluated, and disseminated to support fire departments in addressing the impact of completed suicides within their ranks. 7. Sample templates should be developed for funeral policies related to suicide deaths among active members and retirees. 8. Specific efforts should be directed toward development, dissemination, and evaluation of evidence supported approaches to address suicide among fire service retirees. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Emergency Responders Firefighters Mental Health Nervous System Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Suicide
• Keywords:
  Fire Fighters Information Dissemination Intervention Mental Health Psychological Disorders Rescue Workers Risk Factors Screening Programs Surveillance
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Missouri ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 7 ; South Carolina
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-26
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20054486
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2019-100326
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, R13-OH-010523, 2015 Mar; :1-26
• Contact Point Address:
  Richard Gist, Ph.D., Kansas City Fire Department, 635 Woodland Avenue, Suite 2100, Kansas City, MO 64106
• Email:
  drgist@kc.rr.com
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, Emmitsburg, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20130901
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20140831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:43fe1e498c300155bc3f65a90614b0aeee32aa9a6e55d6196c8d36c6fce6ded99365931a0010249e0e67759e1b07b2cfd249182438f14ba6b67fba8c0ceea2f3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/218814/cdc_218814_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 435.69 KB ]