Author Archives: SBRL

Rory O’Connor to be honoured with the Alumnus Illustrissimus award

Professor Rory O’Connor to be honoured with the Alumnus Illustrissimus award from St. Columb’s College, Derry in recognition of his groundbreaking work on suicide prevention research.  Previous recipients of this award have included Nobel Prize winners Seamus Heaney (Literature) and John Hume (Peace) as well as ex-Ireland and Celtic FC football manager Martin O’Neill.   FullContinue reading “Rory O’Connor to be honoured with the Alumnus Illustrissimus award”

Module to support organisations in Scotland to recognise and respond to distress

A new ground-breaking e-learning module, designed and developed by the University of Glasgow and funded by the Scottish Government, is being launched to enable and empower organisations and people from across Scotland to provide a compassionate and effective response to people in distress. The module, entitled ‘Recognising and Responding to Distress’, was developed as partContinue reading “Module to support organisations in Scotland to recognise and respond to distress”

Huge Congratulations

Huge congratulations to Dr Heather McClelland and Dr Dave Sandford on their PhD graduations this week (29th June 2023), with Jon Evans and Rory O’Connor (supervisors). Sadly missing from photo, Olivia Kirtley, Dave’s co-supervisor.

ADHD and Suicide Risk

ADHD UK is delighted to announce a new research partnership with the University of Glasgow to explore the relationship between ADHD and suicide risk. Although people with ADHD are known to have increased risk of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and death by suicide, there are many gaps in our understanding of why and how they are at increased suicide risk. Over the next 18 months, we aim to explore the association between a range of psychological and psychosocial factors and suicide risk in people with ADHD.

EMCRF21 Live Panel Discussion

This year, the SBRL team will broadcast live on this page the panel discussion at the 5th Suicide and Self-Harm Early and Mid-Career Researchers’ Forum with keynote speakers Prof. Ann John (Swansea University Medical School, Wales) and Prof. Prof. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler (Medical University of Vienna, Austria) chaired by Prof. Rory O’Connor (SBRL Director, University of Glasgow, Scotland). To watch the live panel discussion, click on the video below on Thursday, 17th June 2021 at 16:30 (British Summer Time).

Understanding Suicide Risk in Men

New blog by SBRL’s Cara Richardson summarising findings from her recent systematic review examining suicide risk factors in men. Suicides in men outnumber women in almost every country in the world (Naghavi, 2019), with the exception of the 15-19 year age group. In Scotland males accounted for almost 75% of all suicide deaths in 2019 (ScotPHO, 2020). Each life lost to suicide is a preventable tragedy and more needs to be done to understand the risk factors in individuals who take their own life.

Male suicide: Our Silent Emergency

I had the pleasure of taking part in Roman Kemp’s documentary Our Silent Emergency on mental health and suicide which he made following the death of his best friend and radio producer Joe Lyons.  It will be broadcast tonight on BBC1 at 9pm as well as streaming on BBC iPlayer now.