Thematic analysis of Prevention of Future Death reports for suicide: January 2021 to October 2022

Background

Suicide prevention remains a high priority topic across government and the National Health Service (NHS). Prevention of Future Death (PFD) reports are produced by coroners to highlight concerns that should be addressed by organisations to prevent future deaths in similar circumstances.

Objective

This research aimed to understand themes from concerns raised in PFD reports for deaths from suicide to inform future policies and strategies for preventing suicide.

Methods

We employed a retrospective case series design to analyse PFD reports categorised as suicide using qualitative inductive thematic analysis. Primary themes and subthemes were extracted from coroners’ concerns. Following theme extraction, the number of concerns coded to these themes across reports and the frequency of recipient organisation being named as addressee on these reports were assessed as primary outcomes.

Findings

12 primary themes and 83 subthemes were identified from 164 reports (4% of all available reports). The NHS was the most frequent recipient of these reports, followed by government departments. Coroners raised issues around processes within or between organisations and difficulties accessing services. The most common concerns fell under the primary theme ‘processes’ (142 mentions), followed by ‘access to services’ (84 mentions). The most frequent subthemes were ‘current training not adequate’ (38 mentions) and ‘inadequate communication between services’ (35 mentions).

Conclusions

Our results specify areas where review, improvement and policy development are required to prevent future suicide deaths occurring in similar circumstances.

Clinical implications

These themes highlight concerns across current care and service provision where reform is required for suicide prevention.