Suicide and its prevention

This website contains almost all content of the European Conference on Suicide and its Prevention, that was organized in May 2022 in Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden. Due to technical problems with the livestream only the first session is not available. Therefore, Rijksmuseum Boerhaave has offered Cecile aan de Stegge the chance to have her opening-speech recorded a second time, in order to explain the origin and purpose of this conference, as well as to thank all institutions that offered financial support. The website will be in the air for two years, and links will be given to the Pulse Network at the Free University Amsterdam, Academy of Applied Sciences Leiden and the European Association for the History of Nursing, in order to give as much Europeans a chance to watch the lectures and the discussions.

About the conference

The conference Suicide and its Prevention: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives in Nursing, 1880–2020 is organised on behalf of the European Association for the History of Nursing (EAHN), an international scholarly association dedicated to promoting the development and advancement of nursing history and related fields of historical inquiry.

The conference organizing partners are the Knowledge Centre at the Faculty of Health, University of Applied Sciences in Leiden (dr. Cecile aan de Stegge, University of Applied Sciences Leiden, member of the EAHN) and the Pulse Network in Medical Humanities at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Prof. dr. Manon Parry, Professor in Medical History, VU University Amsterdam). Supporting partners are: Stichting Zuster Vernède; Vitale Delta; 113 Suicideprevention; GGzVS and V&VN, Netherlands.

All contributing speakers are requested to focus their contribution on the specific role of nurses in general and/or in mental health settings, who have experienced patients expressing suicidal ideation or engaging in self-harming behaviours. These experiences may also include working with bereaved families of patients who have committed suicide. The conference organizers hope that the conference will facilitate professional and academic debate on this challenging topic, through historical inquiry or within contemporary practice, and will result in a number of scholarly publications.

Impressions of the conference