As in, wanting to cease living your current life and not have any more responsibilities or problems, and essentially end your session as a living human being, but without actually dying?
As in, wanting to cease living your current life and not have any more responsibilities or problems, and essentially end your session as a living human being, but without actually dying?
It might be a little overwhelming to present this as new information to someone, especially if they’re suicidally depressed. I think triaging based on the passive/active scale is a decent way to assess danger while remaining simple. I don’t have a strong sense of privacy for myself but I would imagine many people aren’t super comfortable talking deeply about it to many people they just met. I would imagine as a HCP you could think of it like a pelvic exam. The fewer people who do their own on the patient, the better, because it’s not fun for the recipient. I say that as a former paramedic and a… well-traveled… mental health patient.
Absolutely. The idea behind the pain scale is to help someone quantify a very subjective thing. As a physician, I would keep it on hand to offer to someone if they were having trouble putting thoughts into words or if they weren’t able to quantify their suicidality.