ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the field of self-directed violence and its prevention and focuses on suicidal behavior. It describes ways in which health care practitioners, especially lifestyle medicine specialists, can play a role in preventing the injuries, whether they practice in clinical or community-based settings. Self-directed violence encompasses a range of violent behaviors, including acts of fatal and nonfatal suicidal behavior, and non-suicidal intentional self-harm. Suicidal thoughts are also important due to their association with self-directed violent behavior. In general, the patterns show that there are higher rates of nonfatal suicidal behavior among females, among adolescents and young adults, and among those with fewer years of formal education and lower socioeconomic status. Suicide and suicidal behavior are complex problems and are not caused by one factor but are influenced by multiple factors acting at multiple levels—individual, family, community, and societal—over time.
