APPENDIX 5: RESOURCES FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION IN FINLAND

Suicide prevention in general

• The national plan for suicide prevention 2020–2023, published by the Finish Government (http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-00-5401-4)

General support

• The Mental Hub (in Finnish “Mielenterveystalo”; https://www.mielenterveystalo.fi/fi ) is a freely available and nationally widely used internet portal maintained by the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). For general uses without referral, it provides information on mental health, psychoeducation, guidance on availability of services, questionnaires and self-help-interventions based on cognitive-behavioural framework.  The website endorses safety planning and creating a plan with a professional but includes also a “virtual helper Milli” with whom a personalized safety plan can be created.

Telephone helplines

• Mieli Mental Health Finland (https://mieli.fi/) is a third sector organization providing telephone crisis helpline; crisis counselling, peer support groups and various internet-based services.
• It also provides a chat service (Sekasin-chat) for the young 12–29 old users  (https://sekasin.fi/) with professionals or trained volunteers, and a peer support server moderated by professionals (Sekasin Gaming https://discord.com/invite/sekasin), and a chat service for adults (Solmussa-chat; https://tukinet.net/teemat/solmussa-chat-783075200/).

For professionals

• National Current Care Guidelines for Finnish health care professionals are provided by Medical Society Duodecim in collaboration with medical specialty organizations such as the Finnish Psychiatric Association. The guidelines include guidance for suicide prevention and evaluation and treatment of suicide attempters (in Swedish https://www.kaypahoito.fi/sv/gvr00020 ). Evaluation of suicide risk is briefly included also into the guidelines for depression https://www.kaypahoito.fi/sv/gvr00067#s13 ), bipolar disorder (https://www.kaypahoito.fi/sv/gvr00065#s14 ), borderline personality disorder (https://www.kaypahoito.fi/sv/gvr00035 ) and noted in the guidelines for schizophrenia (https://www.kaypahoito.fi/sv/gvr00062).
• The Mental Hub (Mielenterveystalo, https://www.mielenterveystalo.fi) contains a closed section (identification needed) for professionals, for whom educational videos and courses, training materials plus scales and questionnaires available. These include a course on evaluation of suicide risk. The Mental Hub also provides internet-based therapies guided by professionals; a referral is needed.

Support for bereaved by suicide and affected by suicide attempt

• Mieli Mental Health Finland organizes under its auspices peer support groups for individuals, couples or families bereaved by suicide. The groups are led by trained professionals.
• The peer support organization Surunauha ry (https://surunauha.net/) is for those bereaved by suicide. It has about 900 members. It collaborates with the Mieli Mental Health and other mental health organizations.

National alliances for suicide prevention

• There are no national alliances specifically for suicide prevention.
• The Finnish Central Association for Mental Health (https://www.mtkl.fi/ ) has a wide network of local associations (> 140).
• FinFami’s (Finnish Central Association of Families of People with mental illness; https://finfami.fi/) 18 member associations’ professional support and counselling services are available around Finland.

Research institutions for suicide prevention

• The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) is the national research institute for health research, including research on mortality and suicides (THL https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/research-and-development/research-and-projects/programme-for-suicide-prevention)
• Multiple researchers at the Finnish universities have a research focus on suicide prevention. 

Statistics on suicide

• Official statistics of suicides in Finland are based on the law on determination of causes of death; sudden and unexpected deaths are by law always examined by police, and the cause of death is determined by forensic medical investigation. The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL; https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en) is responsible for the inspection and supervision of death certificates.
• The statistics are compiled by the Statistics Finland (Tilastokeskus,  https://www.stat.fi/index_en.html).
• The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare maintains statistical service Sotkanet  (https://sotkanet.fi/sotkanet/en/index?) from which statistical information on suicides by age, sex and region is available.