Suicide gatekeeper training outcomes in educational and religious settings

ABSTRACT

Summary: Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) training also known as gatekeeper training, is a short and effective method for spreading awareness and preparing community members to actively engage in preventing suicide, through appropriate knowledge and actions. This study’s purpose was to explore differences in QPR gatekeeper training in educational and religious settings. Outcomes of focus were changes in participants’ self-rated readiness, willingness, and ability to help a person at risk of suicide. Measures were administered at baseline and after the training for participants in educational settings (N = 747) and in religious settings (N = 698). Findings: Results were statistically significant for educational settings [λ = .37, F (1,776) = 1297.69, p = <.001] and for religious settings [λ = .30, F (1,724) = 1690.23, p = <.001]. Strong training effects were noted in both settings.

Application: Suicide prevention gatekeeper training is a ripe opportunity for meso and macro practice in social work. Gatekeeper training can enable social workers to extend their reach far beyond direct practice through empowering community members with awareness of suicide risk factors as well as with confidence to actively intervene with those who may be at risk of suicide. In this way, social workers can enhance connectedness in communities to help prevent death by suicide.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide prevention
• QPR
• gatekeeper training
• community intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).