Is Training in Psychology Associated With Increased Responsiveness to Suicidality?

Abstract

Training is associated with improved responses to suicidal individuals, but it is not clear whether any training helps or whether the training needs to be in psychology. The authors compared beginning and advanced psychology graduate students and practicing psychologists to nursing graduate students. A total of 139 participants in these 4 groups read a vignette about Pat, who had either contemplated suicide or never contemplated suicide, then completed questions about how they would respond to a distressed telephone call from Pat, how suicidal they thought Pat was, and how good a no-suicide contract would be for Pat. Advanced students and psychologists were more helpful in their responses than beginning graduate students, who were more helpful than nursing graduate students. However, all participants noticed whether Pat had contemplated suicide, and all were faintly positive about no-suicide contracts.

Suicide Intervention Skills and Related Factors in Community and Health Professionals

“…It is possible that people volunteering for such work do have relatively more experience, interest, or other facilitative personal characteristics than other members of the general population. The SIRI scores were generally comparable to the few previous studies of volunteer crisis counselors, general practitioners, nurses, practicing psychologists, and psychology students (Fenwick, Vassilas, Carter, & Haque, 2004; Neimeyer & Bonnelle, 1997; Richards & Range, 2001). Scores were, however, far lower in a recent study of Italian professionals; a result the authors ascribed to the generally limited graduate training in suicide prevention in Italy (Palmieri et al, 2008).…”

“…While such contacts provide the opportunity to identify and manage those at risk of suicide, these contacts are often rated as challenging and distressing (Botega et al, 2005; Ramberg & Wasserman, 2003), and indicate the need for well‐skilled professionals. However, formal training in suicide prevention is not usual in graduate programs of clinical psychology and medicine (Bongar & Harmatz, 1989; Hawgood, Krysinska, Ide, & De Leo, 2008; Richards & Range, 2001), and is still more limited in other relevant disciplines such as social work and nursing (Morriss, Gask, Battersby, Francheschini, & Robson, 1999). For the large majority, this is not compensated by postgraduate training of any type (Palmieri et al, 2008).…”

“…With regard to factors related to suicide intervention skills, no significant association has been found with demographic characteristics such as gender, age, marital status or religion (Neimeyer & Bonnelle, 1997; Neimeyer et al, 2001; Richards & Range, 2001), although in some studies female and older professionals tend to have higher skills (Brown & Range, 2005; Neimeyer & Diamond, 1983; Norton, Durlak, & Richards, 1989). The studies on knowledge and attitude concerning suicide are inconsistent, but with a tendency for knowledge not to be related, for death acceptance to be positively related, and for permissive or pathologizing attitudes toward suicide to be negatively related to these skills (Brown & Range, 2005; Neimeyer et al, 2001; Norton et al, 1989).…”

Suicide intervention skills: Graduate training and exposure to suicide among psychology trainees.

“…In partial support of our hypothesis, there was a trend toward more skilled responding among students who had completed more clinical training, which suggests that skills in suicide assessment and intervention do mature with experience (Richards & Range, 2001). Moreover, treating a client(s) with suicidal ideation and/or a history of suicide attempts was associated with better performance on the SIRI-2, indicating that exposure to suicidal clients may promote skill development, though this does not in and of itself ensure preparedness to treat high-risk clients.…”

No‐Harm Contracts: A Review of What We Know

“…Many authors feel that contracts can help build a therapeutic alliance between client and clinician (Centre for Suicide Prevention, 2002; Hoff, 1995; Kelly & Knudson, 2000; Miller et al, 1998; Myers & Range, 2002). Contracts that include steps the client promises to take before killing themselves may also be helpful to the client by providing clear, simple steps to take when they feel too overwhelmed to think of alternatives on their own (Centre for Suicide Prevention 2002; Miller et al, 1998; Myers & Range, 2002; Richards & Range, 2001). In a sense, they serve as instruction sheets for clients in dealing with their crisis.…”