Restricting access to known ‘suicide hotspots' could reduce the number of deaths at these sites by over 90%, a new study has found.

Researchers in Australia carried out a detailed analysis of all studies examining the effectiveness of three specific suicide interventions at high-risk locations around the world. These are:
-Restricting access to the means, e.g. by installing barriers or safety nets
-Encouraging people to seek help, e.g. having information signs or crisis telephones nearby
-Increasing the likelihood of intervention by a third party, e.g. increasing CCTV surveillance.

Eighteen studies were assessed. The number of completed suicides at various locations before and after these interventions were introduced were compared.

The researchers were able to estimate how affective each intervention was, both in isolation and in combination with the others. They found that the number of suicides fell significantly after interventions were introduced.

Interventions to restrict access to risky locations led to 93% fewer suicides per year when used in isolation and 91% fewer suicides when used in combination with other interventions.

Encouraging people to seek help and increasing the likelihood of intervention by a third party also led to a reduction in suicides of between 47% and 61%.

"These key interventions have the potential to complement each other and buy time to allow an individual to reconsider their actions and allow others the opportunity to intervene," commented the study's lead author, Prof Jane Pirkis, of the University of Melbourne.

She acknowledged that suicides at high-risk locations ‘are not the most common ways for people to take their own lives and may only have a small impact on overall suicide rates'.

However, she pointed out that suicide attempts at these sites ‘are often fatal and attract high profile media attention which can lead to copycat acts'.

"These methods of suicide also have a distressing impact on the mental wellbeing of witnesses and people who live or work near these locations," she said.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, The Lancet Psychiatry.