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Report in Mail on new suicide and ME? study by King's College

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
The results are not statistically significant, but the results are likely true in my opinion because the study is underpowered.

Suicide is no joke.

The part I dislike is that they concluded that patients were not getting enough mental health care - how do they know? That's just a guess. Perhaps patients were getting mental health care and it wasn't working. Perhaps people took their lives as they could no longer support themselves financially. Perhaps there were social causes - stigma, family situations etc.
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
The results are not statistically significant, but the results are likely true in my opinion because the study is underpowered.

Suicide is no joke.

The part I dislike is that they concluded that patients were not getting enough mental health care - how do they know? That's just a guess. Perhaps patients were getting mental health care and it wasn't working. Perhaps people took their lives as they could no longer support themselves financially. Perhaps there were social causes - stigma, family situations etc.

Stigma, lack of support, disbelief from doctors, lapck of treatments, lack of research, the way this disease is portrayed in the media, in society. Extreme difficulty in accessing social services and disability insurance.

These are only a few reasons why folks with ME/CFS would consider suicide, and be successful in carrying their plan.

With Wessely again twisting things with this paper in saying that patients need more psychiatric care, we are not out of the woods yet.
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
What evidence do they have that such care worked? A typical hospitalization to prevent suicide puts patients who are already oversensitive to stimuli in a locked ward where there are people with very disturbing behaviors. Medical personnel who are briefed on the BPS school ideas will argue with patients, and make it difficult for them to lie down at times the staff don't want them to sleep, in the expectation that this will cause them to sleep at night, when the place is like a zoo.

There are already press reports of the prospect of such hospitalization precipitating suicide.
 

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
What evidence do they have that such care worked? A typical hospitalization to prevent suicide puts patients who are already oversensitive to stimuli in a locked ward where there are people with very disturbing behaviors. Medical personnel who are briefed on the BPS school ideas will argue with patients, and make it difficult for them to lie down at times the staff don't want them to sleep, in the expectation that this will cause them to sleep at night, when the place is like a zoo.

There are already press reports of the prospect of such hospitalization precipitating suicide.
I know somebody with ME who spent a lot of time in inpatient psychiatric care before taking her life.
From what I heard indirectly, a lot of advice to her wasn't particularly good e.g. they encouraged her to go back full-time studying; they encouraged her to take a part-time job, etc. The advice may be suitable for some people with depression but wasn't being tailored to somebody with ME from what I could gather.
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
What evidence do they have that such care worked? A typical hospitalization to prevent suicide puts patients who are already oversensitive to stimuli in a locked ward where there are people with very disturbing behaviors. Medical personnel who are briefed on the BPS school ideas will argue with patients, and make it difficult for them to lie down at times the staff don't want them to sleep, in the expectation that this will cause them to sleep at night, when the place is like a zoo.

There are already press reports of the prospect of such hospitalization precipitating suicide.
A friend of the family, a man in his 30's who aquired ME following a flu shot, severely affected, committed suicide following hospitalization to investigate illness. Doctors could not help him, social services could not help him. He had nowhere to go. (Canada)
RIP Mathieu Houle
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
Incidentally, I failed to mention above that from what I have learned talking to a psychiatrist, outside any hospital, most of the doctors in psychiatric units have never heard of neurally-mediated hypotension, and are skeptical that it exists. (A reference to Dr. D.H.P. Streeten didn't ring any bells either. When I mentioned the letters after his name, it was admitted that he might not have been a quack. Even after we got to the point of deciding there might be such a real illness, it developed that it was not the psychiatrist's job to treat it. Interestingly, many of the drugs prescribed by psychiatrists carry warnings about causing orthostatic hypotension. Now imagine how this topic is handled by psychiatric nurses directed by this respected doctor.) This is a particular problem for patients suffering from dysautonomia, who can even pass out if forced to remain upright.