image: Somto Chike-Obuekwe has been bestowed the Martin Lawlor Research Bursary Award, a prestigious bursary conferred by Martin Lawlor’s family and supported by the UK’s leading research programme into suicide prevention in clinical services, the ‘National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health’ (NCISH) and the mental health charity 'State of Mind Sport’. view more
Credit: University of Huddersfield
An international PhD student from the University of Huddersfield ’s Department of Pharmacy in the School of Applied Sciences has won a prestigious award for her research on how community pharmacies can contribute to preventing suicide in low and middle-income countries, in particular within her home country of Nigeria.
Somto Chike-Obuekwe has been bestowed the Martin Lawlor Research Bursary Award, a prestigious bursary conferred by Martin Lawlor’s family and supported by the UK’s leading research programme into suicide prevention in clinical services, the ‘National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health’ (NCISH) and the mental health charity 'State of Mind Sport’.
Supporting early career researchers
Dr Martin Lawlor was a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist who specialised in self-harm and suicide research and was a friend and colleague of the NCISH. The award supports early career researchers in the UK and Ireland to expand their knowledge and improve wider understanding of and practice in self-harm or suicide prevention and provides an opportunity to engage with other researchers in self-harm and suicide prevention.
Somto will be using the award to attend the 32nd World Congress by the ‘International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP)’ in Piran, Slovenia from 19 - 23 September 2023 and said she is looking forward to presenting her findings on the contribution of community pharmacists in suicide prevention in Nigeria with delegates at the conference.
The role of community pharmacy teams
The judging panel noted how Somto is the first researcher to consider the role of community pharmacy teams in suicide prevention in Nigeria, or indeed any low or middle-income country and that she recently collaborated with global experts in suicide prevention and pharmacy to submit a symposium for the IASP on the role of pharmacy in suicide prevention.
“My research aims to raise awareness of suicide and prompt the training of pharmacists to become knowledgeable about suicide signs and its risk factors. Community pharmacists are one of the easily accessible health care professionals and are stationed in the heart of the community, so they have the advantage of encountering those with suicide ideation” explained Somto.
in 2022 Somto co-authored a journal article with her PhD supervisors Dr Hayley Gorton and Dr Nicola Gray titled, ‘Suicide Prevention in Nigeria: Can Community Pharmacists Have a Role?’.
In it she reveals how low and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Nigeria, account for 77% of global suicide mortality, with limited resources for its prevention. Following her PhD, Somto hopes to be able to influence the Nigerian government and policymakers in order to improve Nigeria’s suicide prevention strategy and include suicide prevention training in the pharmacy curriculum.