Prevention of suicidal behavior in adolescents: the role and training of teachers.

In order to prevent suicide (attempts) among adolescents, special programs have been developed for secondary school teachers. Such programs inform teachers about the epidemiology, aetiology, symptomatology, and treatment possibilities of severe depression and suicidality of young people, and train them to recognize, handle, and refer such students. In this paper, the rationale is given for involving teachers in suicide prevention. A review of several training programs is presented, and some evaluative findings on the effects of training teachers about the facts of suicidal behavior are presented.