A unique program for patients with depression has achieved a zero suicide rate over the last two and a half years, a stunning decline within a population that, even while receiving mental health treatment, normally loses hundreds per 100,000 every year.
The program, chronicled in an article in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, was created by the Behavioral Health Services division of the Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System in 2001.
The rate of suicide in Henry Ford’s patient population decreased by 75 percent in the first four years of the program, from 89 per 100,000 patients down to 22, which is significantly lower than the annual rates for suicides in similar patient populations. For the last two and a half years though, that rate has dropped to zero per 100,000. This remarkably low rate of patient suicide stands in marked contrast to an expected rate of 230 per 100,000 as reported from scientific research.
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