Implementation of a Health Information System to Support the Screening and Surveillance of Suicidal Behaviours

Abstract

Suicidal behaviour is one of the leading causes of injury and death worldwide. In order to design and implement effective suicide's prevention strategies, it is important the timely identification of individuals at risk, as well as the systematic collection and analysis of suicide-related data. In this paper, we describe the main functionalities of a health information system developed to support general practitioners and mental health specialists with the screening of suicidal behaviours, the management of the follow-up process and the analysis and visualisation of the collected data for surveillance purposes. We also present the initial results obtained after the deployment of the system in six public health care institutions during the first eight months of use.