Background
Helpline services have been identified as an important suicide preventive strategy. In Denmark, different non-governmental organizations offer counselling of people in acute psychiatric crisis. However, these helplines are anonymous and not integrated into the public health care system and consequently cannot refer callers to health care services or provide any follow-up. In September 2022, the Capital Region of Denmark initiated a reorganization of telephone contacts for acute psychiatric care. Now, calls are forwarded to a telephone service center operated by psychiatric nurses who can provide counselling, make referrals (e.g., to acute teams), and facilitate communication to the patients’ treatment teams or general practitioner. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the characteristics, contact with mental health services and suicidal behavior of callers.
Methods
We have access to call data from the telephone company on number of calls during the day, missed calls, response time and length of conversations. From January 2020 and until three months after contact with the telephone line, information on diagnoses, type of contacts to the mental health services and other health-related data will be retrieved from patients’ medical records. These data will be linked with register data on socio-demographic variables and suicidal attempts and death by suicide in a three-month period following the contact to the telephone line.
Results
From August 2023 until March 2024, approximately 1000 calls were received per week. Of those, 44 percent were from patients (hereof 18 percent frequent callers), while 23 were from relatives. The remaining calls came from general practitioners, somatic hospital departments, the police etc. In general, the response time was less than 2 minutes, and mean length of conversations was 7 minutes (adult patients), 11 minutes (patients < 18 years), 4.5 minutes (relatives of adult patients), 6 minutes (relatives of patients < 18 years). Data on patient characteristics (e.g., age, gender, diagnoses, socio-demographic) and contact with mental health services will be available before the ESSSB conference in August 2024 and results will here be presented.
Conclusion
Findings from the ongoing study reveals that the major share of callers was patients and their relatives. Further characteristics, such as use of mental health services and suicidal behavior, will be available at the time of the conference.