Clemens Fartacek

Paracelsus Medical University · University Clinic of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy & Psychosomatics

Objective Suicide risk is highly fluctuating. There is a need for predictors of short‐term change in suicide risk to optimize risk assessment and treatment, especially among individuals who already attempted suicide. Methods Based on 1776 daily assessments of 16 former psychiatric inpatients with a history of suicide attempts, we examined how suic...

Background Some studies have reported an increase in suicides after the start of daylight saving time (DST), but the evidence is mixed and more research about proposed mechanisms (disrupted sleep, changing light exposure) is needed. Methods In our preregistered study, we analyzed change in suicide rates in the 2 weeks before/after DST, based on da...

Background The development and implementation of gatekeeper trainings were first goals in the national suicide prevention strategy “Suicide Prevention Austria” (SUPRA). The current study aims to assess the short- and longer-term effects of the SUPRA gatekeeper trainings in comparison with established gatekeeper trainings. Methods We evaluated 28 g...

Background Therapeutic alliance is thought to be essential in the treatment of suicidality. Surprisingly, studies about the association between therapeutic alliance and change in suicide ideation over the course of treatment are sparse and reported inconsistent results. Furthermore, theoretically important moderators were rarely explored empiricall...

With the increasing use of real-time monitoring procedures in clinical practice, psychological time series become available to researchers and practitioners. An important interest concerns the identification of pattern transitions which are characteristic features of psychotherapeutic change. Change Point Analysis (CPA) is an established method to...

A wealth of research suggests that sexual minority individuals experience stigma and lack of sexual minority specific competencies in mental health care, which could lead to less optimal treatment outcome. However, most related research suffers from methodological limitations, such as selected samples, retrospective design, or not assessing treatme...

Aim In many cases, the dynamics of psychotherapeutic change processes is characterized by sudden and critical transitions. In theoretical terms, these transitions may be “phase transitions” of self-organizing nonlinear systems. Meanwhile, a variety of methods is available to identify phase transitions even in short time series. However, it is still...

Several suicidologists have suggested modeling suicidal processes within the framework of nonlinear dynamic systems (NDS). In this chapter, we summarize our NDS perspective on suicidal processes, developed in cooperation with Günter Schiepek. This includes the application of basic concepts of NDS for suicidal processes, followed by a discussion of...

Objective: Religion and spirituality (R&S) were protective against suicidal behavior in the majority of studies. In prospective studies, R&S were associated with improved outcome for patients with depression, a main risk factor for suicide. Thus, R&S may also improve recovery from suicidal crisis, but related data is lacking. Method: We explored...

Known but unpredictable – an argument for complexity - Volume 42 Issue 2 - Martin Plöderl, Clemens Fartacek

Deutsch: Menschen, die bereits einen Suizidversuch durchgeführt ha- ben, tragen ein hohes Risiko für neuerliches suizidales Verhal- ten und sind daher eine wichtige Zielgruppe in der Suizidprä- vention. Der Notfallplan ist eine international etablierte und nachweislich wirksame Methode zur Rückfallprophylaxe von suizidalem Verhalten. Das Ziel der v...

Background Sexual minority (SM) individuals (gay, lesbian, bisexual, or otherwise nonheterosexual) are at increased risk for mental disorders and suicide and adequate mental healthcare may be life-saving. However, SM patients experience barriers in mental healthcare that have been attributed to the lack of SM-specific competencies and heterosexist...

Most studies have found religion/spirituality to be protective against suicide risk, with a stronger effect among women. To understand this effect, theories of suicide and clinical samples are needed, but related studies are lacking. We applied two established suicide models in 753 psychiatric inpatients. Religion/spirituality correlated protective...

In recent years, a number of different authors have stressed the usefulness of non-linear dynamic systems approach in suicide research and suicide prevention. This approach applies specific methods of time series analysis and, consequently, it requires a continuous and fine-meshed assessment of the processes under consideration. The technical means...

Background: Contrary to the myth that suicides increase around Christmas, multiple studies reveal that suicide rates decrease towards Christmas and return back to normal or even peak in the beginning of the new year. We aimed to replicate this effect for Austria. Methods: The analyses were based on the official suicide statistics 2000-13 using P...

Many studies have found elevated levels of suicide ideation and attempts among sexual minority (homosexual and bisexual) individuals as compared to heterosexual individuals. The suicide risk difference has mainly been explained by minority stress models (MSTM), but the application of established suicidological models and testing their interrelation...

Zusammenfassung Menschen, die bereits einen Suizidversuch durchgeführt haben, haben ein erhöhtes Risiko für künftige Suizidver-suche und Suizide. Notfallpläne verfolgen das Ziel, den Patienten auf neuerliche suizidale Krisen bestmöglich vorzubereiten und so das Risiko für suizidales Verhalten zu senken. Diese Arbeit hat zum Ziel, die Notfallplan-In...

Many studies have reported higher rates of suicide attempts among sexual minority individuals compared with their heterosexual counterparts. For suicides, however, it has been argued that there is no sexual orientation risk difference, based on the results of psychological autopsy studies. The purpose of this article was to clarify the reasons for...

Religion is known to be a protective factor against suicide. However, religiously affiliated sexual minority individuals often report a conflict between religion and sexual identity. Therefore, the protective role of religion against suicide in sexual minority people is unclear. We investigated the effect of religion on suicide risk in a sample of...

Sturm J, Plöderl M, Fartacek C, Kralovec K, Neunhäuserer D, Niederseer D, Hitzl W, Niebauer J, Schiepek G, Fartacek R. Physical exercise through mountain hiking in high-risk suicide patients. A randomized crossover trial. Objective: The following crossover pilot study attempts to prove the effects of endurance training through mountain hiking in hi...

Despite decades of research, the prediction of suicidal behavior remains limited. As a result, searching for more specific risk factors and testing their predictive power are central in suicidology. This strategy may be of limited value because it assumes linearity to the suicidal process that is most likely nonlinear by nature and which can be mor...

The presentation highlights the importance of homosexuality in understanding depression and suicidality among men. This issue is not sufficiently acknowledged in research and practice even though international studies report homosexual and bisexual men to be at high risk for depression and suicidality. Results from a meta-analysis of international...

Schlüsselwörter: Nahtoderlebnis – Suizidversuch – Suizidrisikoeinschätzung Key words: near-death experience – suicide attempt –suicide risk assessment Sind Nahtoderlebnisse nach Suizid-versuchen bedeutsam für die wei-tere Suizidrisikoeinschätzung? Ein Fallbericht Wir berichten von einem 59jährigen Mann, der im Rahmen eines geschei-terten Suizids ei...

We aimed to investigate the role of impulsivity and aggression as suicide risk factors for patients with adjustment disorder with depressive features (AS) in the context of the model proposed by Mann et al. (17). Fortyseven AS patients with a history of a suicide attempt (ASattempters) were compared with 74 AS patients without such a history (AS-no...

We describe a 59-year old patient who reported a near-death experience following attempted suicide. The near-death experience induced reduction of suicidality. Previous studies suggested a high prevalence of near-death experiences following attempted suicide and that near-death experiences may decrease rather than increase subsequent suicide risk....

ausreichend. Wir versuchen zu zeigen, dass HBS- Männer neben dem Minoritätenstress schon lan- ge vor dem Comingout mit negativen sozialen Re- aktionen konfrontiert sind, und deshalb das Risiko für spätere psychische Probleme steigt. Grund dafür ist sehr wahrscheinlich frühes geschlechts- rollenabweichendes Verhalten und dadurch aus- gelöste negativ...