 Hi guys, Ashley here. Back with another video and not only in my back and doing a video where I look ratchet AF because I'm pregnant and don't feel well. Now I literally have a cold. And I'm pregnant and don't feel well. So these past few days have been rough, hence why I'm rough. And I'm going to just do my best in this video. Anyways, I wanted to do a video on tips for handling, working with suicidal patients. Also may be known as SI patients, suicidal ideation. These are patients who have threatened or possibly threatened or have a suspicion of harming themselves or others or maybe they actually have, like they've overdosed or they've tried to cut themselves, hang themselves, whatever, or they have made the threat to. And no matter where you work in the hospital, you are going to come across these patients and it's important as nurses to make this part of your assessment. At my hospital, every patient that gets admitted to the ICU, we do a suicide screening regardless of what you're admitted there for. Now, I'm not saying that depending on the patient, obviously, it's just your general typical patient that's there for high blood pressure and you know, you're still going to do that initial screening upon admission, but you're not going to ask them every assessment, you know, are you having thoughts of harming yourselves or others? So this is geared towards those patients that have already maybe confessed to being suicidal or homicidal or have actually done an act towards themselves or others to cause harm. First and foremost, when you are working with suicidal patients or homicidal patients, the number one thing is your safety and their safety. So every hospital is going to have different protocols on when you have a patient that's suicidal. At my hospital, we have a sitter that has to be in the room. There are certain things that can't go in the room or have to be removed from the room like cords and pens and if they have trays being delivered to them, they have to have disposable silverware and like tray, the actual trays have to be disposable. So they can't have any like metal silverware or anything that they could use to potentially harm themselves. So it's important to make sure that their environment is safe and also making sure that you're checking what the visitors are bringing in or don't allow visitors to bring any belongings in the room. If your patient is allowed to have visitors and if whatever your policy is at the hospital as far as bringing visitors in and belongings, make sure that you're double-checking what they're bringing in and that your environment is safe. And that means that you or security or whatever your policy is at your hospital need to go through their belongings when they first get there and most likely you're going to want to either have those belongings sent home with a family member if the patient's okay with it or have them locked up with security until the patient can have their belongings back and are cleared or whatever ends up happening with that patient. I guess a lot of people asked in regards to this topic, you know, how you're assessing your patient for a suicide or how you can talk to them about it because it is kind of a touchy subject and my best advice is to not beat around the bush. A lot of times patients that are suicidal know that they're suicidal and know that that's why they're in the hospital or part of the reason why they're in the hospital. And so you just want to be very therapeutic, very non-judgmental when you ask them the questions of, you know, are you having thoughts of harming yourselves or others? Do you have a plan to harm yourselves or others? And you're just going to ask those. It should be the on-the-screening tool. Every hospital I'm sure has one, at least in the United States, because I'm pretty sure it's like a mandatory thing of those questions that you have to ask someone. And if you feel uncomfortable asking someone these questions, maybe it's like your nine-year-old happy, cheery grandma that you just, you know, she's probably not suicidal, but you still have to ask her anyway. I just kind of like to preface, preface, whatever the words are. My cat is literally trying to jump up on the window and he fell. You can just preface your questions with, I know these questions may seem silly to you, but they're very important for us to ask everyone. We ask everyone that comes into the hospital and then just go ahead and ask the questions that stop. And then just ask them and go through all your screening questions. Same thing with, you know, alcohol and drugs and those questions that you may feel silly asking, but they're just important questions and you never know if someone may be suicidal and they don't show that they're suicidal. They're not, you know, showing the normal, so to speak, signs of suicide. As a nurse, I feel like a lot of times we feel obligated to try and like dive deep into like patients' history and past and, you know, find out the core reason why they're suicidal. And I think as a nurse, at least as like a general bedside nurse, not necessarily like a psych nurse. If you're doing in the psych field, you probably are going to get more in-depth with these things, but as just a general bedside nurse, personally, I like to offer a listening ear. I like to ask basic questions as far as like, you know, maybe they're living arrangements or who they have for support or things like that. But usually, if a patient's in for suicidal ideation, they're going to have a psych consult or some what of a social work arrangement or something to where someone is going, of some professional that is trained in that area is going to be asking more of those in-depth questions. And so as a nurse, I like to just offer a listening ear. I like to ask my basic questions so that way I can kind of get a general idea, but you don't need to really go and dive in to a patient's, you know, background in history of what may have led them to be suicidal. Unless they open up to you about it, or maybe it's part of your protocol, I don't know. I've been just saying in general, this is kind of what I tend to do. But anyways, I hope that kind of helps, you guys. I know this didn't have a whole lot of tips in it, but basically just offers kind of some words of wisdom or opens up the topic for discussion for people who maybe are a little bit afraid to work with suicidal patients or feel uncomfortable or are just, I'm sure. So remember at the end of the day, we're all human. We all deserve to be treated with respect. And that's what you should do for all your patients regardless if they're suicidal or not. Thank you guys for watching this video. If you have any other tips or advice, leave them in the comments below. Give us your thumbs up and subscribe, and I'll see you next time. Bye.