A college suicide prevention model for American Indian students.

Abstract

College student suicide prevention efforts are important to campus administrators and mental health professionals due to increasing concerns about managing suicidal students. This article describes the development and preliminary effectiveness of a campus suicide prevention program designed for American Indian (AI) students who are at higher risk for suicide compared with the general population. Using the medicine wheel as a guiding framework, the current prevention model integrates communication links between AI tribes and prevention program staff, educational and cultural programming, and spiritual ceremonies with the larger campus mental health resources available to students. A discussion of the barriers faced and solutions generated for implementing the program is offered, along with suggestions for disseminating this AI-specific prevention program to other universities.

A systematic review of suicide prevention interventions targeting indigenous peoples in Australia, United States, Canada and New Zealand

“…Five intervention evaluations targeted Native Americans [37,39-42]; three targeted Aboriginal Australians [35,36,38,43] and one First Nation Canadians (Inuit) [34]. No interventions targeted the Maori of New Zealand.…”

Suicide in Adolescent American Indians: Preventative Social Work Programs

“…Muehlenkamp et al (2009) demonstrated this in a regional public institution in the upper Midwest. They showed that many American Indian students lacked the skills and knowledge to deal with suicide as part of the college experience.…”

“…The barriers include: inability to participate in cultural celebrations and traditions due to lack of proximity to their native reservation, lack of culturally sensitive staff in the universities' health system, and lack of culturally appropriate education techniques exhibited in these sensitive matters. Moreover, Muehlenkamp et al (2009) noted that students' emotional distress is often not noted as a serious event affecting the relative reservation of the students, which often goes unknown to the non-American Indian health practitioners on campus. This underscores the need for student helpers, much like natural helpers of the reservation, to be used to distribute information to the university staff.…”

“…Of the 368 students who participated in the evaluated programs, 24.5% or 90 students utilized at least one aspect of the program. Four of the participants were referred directly for crisis intervention, two of whom were referred by students who attended the educational trainings (Muehlenkamp et al 2009). …”

A social work study to investigate the relationship between mental health conditions, religion and suicide attempts

“…Final year students more often considered suicide to be an expression of psychiatric disease and thought that people trying to commit suicide were not responsible for their own actions. Muehlenkamp et al (2009) presented a model for college suicide prevention American Indian students who were at higher risk for suicide compared with the general population. They offered a discussion of the barriers faced and solutions generated for implementing the program along with recommendations for disseminating this AI-specific prevention program to other universities.…”