The engaged community action for preventing suicide (ECAPS) model in Latin America: development of the ¡PEDIR! program

Abstract

Purpose It is estimated that someone dies by suicide every 40 s globally and that 3000 people end their lives daily. Of these deaths, 79% occur in low-resource settings. The very nature of the low-resource settings often serves as a barrier to the adoption and implementation of evidence-based suicide prevention models that have demonstrated success in high-resource countries. As such rates of suicide continue to increase, the workforce of trained mental health providers equipped to effectively engage, assess, and treat individuals struggling with suicidal thoughts and behaviors remains relatively stagnant. This paper aims to illustrate the implementation of the Engaged Community Action for Preventing Suicide (ECAPS) model as a means of developing a culturally relevant and responsive model of suicide prevention that is acceptable and sustainable in low-resource settings. Methods University faculty and staff (n=34) and psychology students (n=25), and community-based mental health providers (n=41) providing mental health services to at-risk individuals in highly vulnerable communities in Lima, Peru participated in the implementation of ECAPS process. Results The resulting program, ¡PEDIR!, demonstrates the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of the ECAPS model. Conclusion The ECAPS model is a feasible and effective framework for use in low-resource settings to guide the development of a culturally relevant community-level intervention to address the systemic, societal, and individual level factors that serve as barriers to suicide prevention.

Epidemiology of Suicide Mortality in Paraguay from 2005 to 2019: A Descriptive Study

“…This model proves to be both feasible and effective in guiding the development of culturally relevant, community-level intervention. ECAPS adopts a community-based participatory approach, fostering cross-cultural partnerships, resource sharing, and shared decision-making power [ 49 ]. The seven key steps involve: (1) identifying the relevant determinants specific to the community associated with suicide risk; (2) assessing the resources available (and not available) in the community; (3) prioritizing determinants according to available resources; (4) developing a change strategy; (5) implementing the strategy; (6) evaluating outcomes; and (7) identifying next steps.…”

“…The results of the ¡PEDIR! Program revealed that the ECAPS model is a feasible and effective framework for use in low-resource settings to guide the development of a culturally relevant community-level intervention to address the systemic, societal, and individual level factors that serve as barriers to suicide prevention [ 49 ].…”

Epidemiology of Suicide Mortality in Paraguay from 2005 to 2019: A Descriptive Study

“…This model proves to be both feasible and effective in guiding the development of culturally relevant, community-level intervention. ECAPS adopts a community-based participatory approach, fostering cross-cultural partnerships, resource sharing, and shared decisionmaking power [49]. The seven key steps involve: (1) identifying the relevant determinants specific to the community associated with suicide risk; (2) assessing the resources available (and not available) in the community; (3) prioritizing determinants according to available resources; (4) developing a change strategy; (5) implementing the strategy; (6) evaluating outcomes; and (7) identifying next steps.…”

Conducta suicida en estudiantes universitarios

“…Conviene destacar que, en el caso peruano, los alumnos llegan a la universidad con dichos problemas (12,13,15) . A nivel mundial se vienen implementando programas de prevención (16) que suelen incluir líneas de ayuda, campañas de concientización y capacitación de profesionales de la salud y educación (17) . En la UNMSM, nos apoyamos en la Teoría Informacional de la Personalidad de Pedro Ortiz, la cual propone que el hombre nace modelado genéticamente como miembro de la especie Homo Sapiens para, luego de ser educado y humanizado por la sociedad, culminar tal proceso al final de la adolescencia y convertirse en una personalidad (18,19,20) .…”