Involving People with Lived Experience in Research on Suicide Prevention

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in Canada, with about 10 Canadians dying by suicide each day. Men represent nearly two-thirds of those who die by suicide after an initial episode of self-harm. However, interventions for these men have had modest effects and, generally, suffer from a lack of engagement by patients. Partnerships with patients and other people with lived experience of suicide are essential to developing interventions that work for the people they are designed to treat. One of the key goals of The BEACON Study is to develop patient partnerships to inform both what intervention we developed and how to best recruit participants in the emergency department following an episode of self-harm. This article describes our experience with engaging patient partners and the key lessons we have learned so far.