Education measures of the psychological support programme - the tool for suicide prevention in Lithuania armed forces
ENLithuania is still among the leading countries with the highest number of suicides in the population. A retrospective analysis was carried out on manual data of military servicemen suicide cases in the Lithuanian Armed Forces during the period 2005-2015. Most of the cases were younger aged, lower rank soldiers. Right after each suicide act, the Psychological Support Programme was presented to the family members and colleagues as well as group meetings and educational lectures for leaders on the recognition of early suicidal signs. Moreover, the Department of Military Psychology established a goal of having a psychologist in every military region or bigger unit, in order to make psychological help more attainable. For this reason, the numbers of psychological consultations, counselling and seminars significantly increased. Finally, groups of psychotherapy in the churches announced by military chaplains as help for persons in bereavement started in two cities. We think that all of these efforts made an impact on rates of suicides decreasing from 4-5 per year to 0-2. Keywords: Educational measures; military suicide; soldiers; critical events.
