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A Systematic Literature Review of Technologies for Suicidal Behavior Prevention

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Abstract

Suicide is the second cause of death in young people. The use of technologies as tools facilitates the detection of individuals at risk of suicide thus allowing early intervention and efficacy. Suicide can be prevented in many cases. Technology can help people at risk of suicide and their families. It could prevent situations of risk of suicide with the technological evolution that is increasing. This work is a systematic review of research papers published in the last ten years on technology for suicide prevention. In September 2017, the consultation was carried out in the scientific databases PubMed, ScienceDirect, PsycINFO, The Cochrane Library and Google Scholar. A general search was conducted with the terms “prevention” AND “suicide” AND "technology. More specific searches included technologies such as "Web”, “mobile”, “social networks”, and others terms related to technologies. The number of articles found following the methodology proposed was 90, but only 30 are focused on the objective of this work. Most of them were Web technologies (51.61%), mobile solutions (22.58%), social networks (12.90%), machine learning (3.23%) and other technologies (9.68%). According to the results obtained, although there are technological solutions that help the prevention of suicide, much remains to be done in this field. Collaboration among technologists, psychiatrists, patients, and family members is key to advancing the development of new technology-based solutions that can help save lives.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Service of Psiquiatry of the Provincial Hospital of Zamora, Spain, for the collaboration in this work.

This research has been partially supported by the European Commission and the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism under the project AAL-20125036 named “WetakeCare: ICT- based Solution for (Self-) Management of Daily Living”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psiquiatry Service, Provincial Hospital of Zamora, Hernán Cortés, 40, 49021, Zamora, Spain

    Manuel A. Franco-Martín & Juan Luis Muñoz-Sánchez

  2. Department of Signal Theory and Communications, and Telematics Engineering, University of Valladolid, Paseo de Belén, 15, 47011, Valladolid, Spain

    Beatriz Sainz-de-Abajo, Gema Castillo-Sánchez & Isabel de la Torre-Díez

  3. Bretagne Loire and Nantes Universities, UMR 6164, IETR Polytech Nantes, Nantes, France

    Sofiane Hamrioui

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  1. Manuel A. Franco-Martín
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Correspondence to Isabel de la Torre-Díez.

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Franco-Martín, M.A., Muñoz-Sánchez, J.L., Sainz-de-Abajo, B. et al. A Systematic Literature Review of Technologies for Suicidal Behavior Prevention. J Med Syst 42, 71 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-0926-5

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