A new study found that talk therapy can help reduce suicide risks by 26 percent, even after five years of the treatment.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States with 40,600 cases reported in 2012. Current treatment methods are medication and psychotherapies.
Researchers from John Hopkins University conducted a study to determine the benefits of talk therapy sessions in preventing suicide. The study involved more than 65,000 participants who had attempted suicide, some who had received talk therapy or counseling, and 17,000 who did not receive therapy (these were members of the control group).
The group who underwent talk therapy had six to 10 sessions in different clinics in Denmark. For each session, the participants were allowed to converse about their problems and difficulties with a professional.
Researchers followed them for up to 20 years to measure the effects of the talk therapy in suicide risk reduction.
The analysis showed that 27 percent of those who underwent talk therapy were less likely to attempt suicide compared to those who had no therapy. Five years after, researchers observed a 26 percent drop in suicide rates from the same group, the BBC reported.
"We know that people who have attempted suicide are a high-risk population and that we need to help them. However, we did not know what would be effective in terms of treatment," said study leader, Annette Erlangsen, DPH, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Now we have evidence that psychosocial treatment - which provides support, not medication - is able to prevent suicide in a group at high risk of dying by suicide."
Researchers plan to continue their study by making a similar analysis on other forms of suicide prevention treatments.
The results of the study were published in the Nov. 24 issue of Lancet Psychiatry.
