The finding suggests opportunities for interventions aimed at reducing female suicides. For example, health care providers need to be vigilant about misuse of alcohol among their at-risk depressed and suicidal female as well as male patients [24]. On the other hand, the male preference for using firearms limits possible suicide prevention strategies. As Kaplan et al. [25] observed, the use of highly lethal means provides a limited window for rescue and psychiatric treatment. Even for patients who have been identified as suicidal, in only half the instances would physicians inquire whether or not the patient had access to a firearm [26]. Nonetheless, health care providers should suggest to family members of depressed and alcohol-misusing patients that they reduce the patients’ access to firearms.
