This thesis presents four chapters: section one: systematic literature review; section two: empirical research paper; section three: critical appraisal; section four: ethics application. The systematic literature reviews offers a summary of risk-to-self (e.g. self-harm and suicide) risk-assessment tools validated for acute psychiatric inpatient settings. Sixteen reports were included in the review and ten psychometric properties of 15 risk-assessment tools were appraised using a quality rating system. The empirical study qualitatively explores the experiences of clinical psychologists who have had a patient die by suicide whilst working in acute psychiatric inpatient settings. Six participants’ experiences were analysed and interpreted using ‘Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis’ (IPA). The critical appraisal synthesises the finding of the systematic review and empirical study, and offers a deeper exploration of clinical recommendations and limitations of the reports. The final section includes the ethics application for the empirical study, the approval letter and supplementary documentation used to conduct the research.