Self-harm

The mental health triage scale can be used at the initial assessment of the patient presenting to the ED.

This was developed for use with the NICE guidelines on self-harm [8].

It can be helpful in assessing risk of further self-harm or risk to others and highlights those patients requiring a higher level of supervision prior to full assessment [10].

Various suicide and self-harm risk assessment tools are available including the:

• Pierce suicide risk assessment tool
• Edinburgh risk of repetition tool
• Beck suicide intent tool [11]

These have all been demonstrated to have a low accuracy for prediction of further deliberate self-harm (DSH) but their use can encourage prompt referral to psychiatric services for assessment.