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.