General practitioners’ perspectives regarding suicide prevention: a systematic scoping review

Background Suicide is a major public health issue. Up to a third of patients will visit their General Practitioner (GP) in the month leading up to a suicide attempt, thus highlighting the key role GPs play in suicide prevention.

Aim This systematic scoping review aimed to explore the qualitative research on GPs’ perspectives of suicide prevention in primary care.

Design & setting A systematic scoping review of qualitative studies relating to the research question.

Method This review is reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidance. Articles at full-text review were assessed for inclusion in the study against eligibility criteria (english language, qualitative research, focus on GPs perspectives of suicide prevention). Data were extracted using a standardised form and a thematic synthesis approach was used to describe the themes elicited from the studies.

Results 2210 abstracts were screened. Twelve studies from seven countries were included at full text review. Four main themes were elicited: challenges to managing suicidal behaviour, fragmented relationships with mental health services, personal attitudes of GPs regarding suicidal behaviour and identified needs to improve suicide prevention in primary care.

Conclusion Understanding GPs' perspectives can lead to improved training, resources, and support for primary care professionals, who are frontline providers of mental healthcare. This scoping review suggested there is a lack of evidence around what approaches GPs find effective in managing suicidality and how relationships can be strengthened with mental health services to deliver person-centred integrated care for those identified at risk of suicide.