ABSTRACT
The fact that women often access help and use services whereas men often do not is reflected in the statistics for suicide in this group. Despite some recent welcome falls in the rate for male suicide, it remains a major cause of death of men aged 25–34, with young men almost four times more likely to take their own life than women. The inability to provide for themselves and their family is seen by many men as a testament to their failure as a person. The effective treatments available for depression range from talking treatments through pharmacological interventions and electroconvulsive therapy and these appear to have as much efficacy in men as in women. Men are seen as having a poor uptake of educational material around health but it may be that men simply have a different approach to seeking information. Key to the success of this work is having the right people in place.
