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Training Mental Health Professionals to Assess and Manage Suicidal Behavior: Can Provider Confidence and Practice Behaviors be Altered?
Author(s) -
Oordt Mark S.,
Jobes David A.,
Fonseca Vincent P.,
Schmidt Steven M.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1521/suli.2009.39.1.21
Subject(s) - suicidology , mental health , perception , medicine , psychology , suicide prevention , health care , primary care , clinical psychology , nursing , poison control , family medicine , psychiatry , medical emergency , neuroscience , economics , economic growth
Remarkably little systematic research has studied the effects of clinical suicidology training on changing practitioner attitudes and behaviors. In the current study we investigated whether training in an empirically‐based assessment and treatment approach to suicidal patients administered through a continuing education workshop could meaningfully impact professional practices, clinic policy, clinician confidence, and beliefs posttraining and 6 months later. At the 6 month follow‐up we found that 44% of practitioners reported increased confidence in assessing suicide risk, 54% reported increased confidence in managing suicidal patients, 83% reported changing suicide care practices, and 66% reported changing clinic policy. These results suggest that a brief and carefully developed workshop training experience can potentially change provider perceptions and behaviors with a possible impact on clinical care therein.