Grant: Catalyst Grant: PTSI among PSP workers

This proposal aims to compare health service use, methods of suicide and records of health service use in Public Safety Personnel who have died by suicide in Ontario compared to suicides in the general population. The need for this study arose out of collaborations with the First Responder Mental Health Network Collaboration (FRMHNC), a group established in 2015 which includes representation from the Ottawa Tri-Services (paramedics, firefighters and police officers). A key focus of this group is to inform current and future research projects. This group highlighted the lack of information on Public Safety Personnel deaths by suicide. From these discussions, we decided to use the opportunity of this call for submissions to address three issues using data collected from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). First, we want to assess differences in health service use between Public Safety Personnel and the general population who die by suicide in the two years preceding their death. Second, we want to evaluate differences in the characteristics of Public Safety Personnel suicides compared to the general population. Lastly, we want to assess the agreement between data collected from the Office of the Chief Coroner and ICES.