Dr. John Cutcliffe, David G. Braithwaite professor of nursing at The University of Texas at Tyler, is the co-author of a new book which examines the mental health care of suicidal individuals, Dr. Linda Klotz, UT Tyler College of Nursing and Health Sciences dean, announced.

Care of the Suicidal Person is based on a study, “Meaningful Caring Responses to Suicidality – Developing a Theory for Mental Health Nurses,” conducted in the United Kingdom by Cutcliffe and co-author Dr. Chris Stevenson, professor at Dublin City University in Ireland. This federally funded study remains the largest funded study of its kind to be undertaken in the United Kingdom.

“What we were anxious to find out was how psychiatric nurses actually provide meaningful care for suicidal people,” said Cutcliffe. “Often if you are admitted to a mental health facility in some form of suicidal crisis, you get little more than a custodial experience. You are inevitably observed - often in a very impersonal way – then get followed around by some form of mechanical zombie. You may even be unlucky enough to be secluded.  Yet there were some examples of wonderfully compassionate and effective psychiatric nursing care of suicidal people.  We want to better understand and disseminate these practices."

Published by Churchill Livingston, Care of the Suicidal Person is the first book of its kind to focusspecifically on the psychiatric nursing care of suicidal people, according to Cutcliffe.

The book, Cutcliffe’s seventh, also has forewords written by the internationally reknowned eminent suicidologists: Dr. Ron Maris, Dr. Paul Links and Dr. Brian Mishara.

“Dr. Frank Campbell, executive director of the Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center, also contributed a chapter about suicidal survivors and the need to focus more research activity there,” Cutcliffe added.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler offers excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. More than 70 undergraduate and graduate degrees are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of nearly 6,000 high-ability students at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine.