Hard-hitting anti-suicide adverts set for TV

• The TV advert will be aired over an eight-week period, starting on Monday, and hopes to encourage people to talk about their problems instead of bottling feelings up. Picture: Complimentary

The 124,000 campaign, which will also include online and radio adverts, is aimed at encouraging people to talk about their problems.

The 63,000 advert will run for eight weeks from Monday and shows a depressed man at work and later in a pub with a friend, who asks if he is feeling all right.

The man chokes and his friend performs the Heimlich manoeuvre, at which point the word "suicidal" is spat on to the table, where it squirms and disappears.

The advert is designed to be hard-hitting and direct. Choose Life and NHS Health Scotland, which are behind the campaign, want to break the taboo over talking about depression.

Choose Life is a ten-year strategy designed to reduce rates by 20 per cent by 2013. At present, two people commit suicide every day in Scotland, but in a progress report released yesterday it warned that changes in policy and the way funds were allocated had ''undermined'' the framework and the target would not be achieved.

It said: ''Participants felt that the changes in the national landscape had undermined the strong supporting framework of Choose Life ... and that there had been a loss of leadership and momentum from the Scottish Government.''

The adverts are aimed at men aged 18 to 44, as three out of four suicide victims in Scotland are male, and younger men are at even greater risk.

Monica Merson, the acting programme manager for Choose Life and head of health and wellbeing at NHS Health Scotland, said: ''Crucially, this TV advert is about saving lives.

''By airing the advert later at night, when we know men who are feeling suicidal are most likely to be alone and watching TV, we hope to convey the message that they're not alone and that support is out there, but the first very difficult step is to talk about how they are feeling.''

Choose Life reviewed phase two of its campaign, between 2006 and 2008, and found that only ''variable'' progress had been made in targeting high-risk groups.

There were 843 suicides in Scotland in 2008. Rates reached a high of 17.4 per 100,000 people in 2000-2, but dropped to 15.6 in 2006-8.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said the report "notes a perception from some that there has been a falling-off in momentum in suicide prevention policy", and added: ''We are surprised at that, as suicide remains a key priority for the Scottish Government, and several policy areas are taking action to tackle the possible risk factors.''

The report is being considered by the government's suicide prevention review group, which is expected to publish its conclusions later this year.

Analysis: Claire Wood'Our rate is highest in UK… it's not hard to see we need help'