Browsing by Subject "Suicide prevention"
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Item Between suicidality and self : effects of mindfulness on college students' entrance into and progression along the continuum of suicidality(2013-08) Hess, Elaine Allison; Drum, David J.Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students, making it a prime target for prevention initiatives on college campuses. Efforts to manage the problem of suicidality on campus frequently involve shepherding students at elevated risk into treatment services through the college counseling center. Several scholars have called for suicide prevention efforts to take a public health approach, seeking to intervene more broadly by improving the mental health of the general population that is currently at little to no risk of developing an imminent suicidal crisis. One manner of expanding these prevention efforts is to investigate those factors that preserve the emotional and mental resilience of college students facing similar life stressors and distress levels. As such, scholars of suicidality have called for closer examination of those protective factors that prevent some students--experiencing comparable levels of stress as compared to their suicidal peers--from ever entering into or progressing along the suicidality continuum. Mindfulness is a construct that has shown promise in the intervention literature for its ameliorative affect on a range of disorders and problematic coping behaviors. The possible protective benefit of dispositional levels of mindfulness at varying points along the suicidal continuum is not well understood, and the present study seeks to remedy this gap in the literature in a large sample of college students. Using archival data from a national survey of college student coping collected in 2011 by The National Research Consortium of Counseling Centers in Higher Education, this study explored the effect of trait mindfulness levels on entry into and progression along the continuum of suicidality. Multilevel modeling was used to explore associations between historical and demographic predictors of suicidality, dispositional mindfulness levels, self-reported distress levels during a recent stressful period, strength of intent during a recent suicidal crisis, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors along a continuum of suicidality. Results indicated that mindfulness conveys protection at the threshold of developing suicidal thoughts during a recent stressor, but is not associated with the shift from suicidal thoughts to the development of suicidal behaviors. Implications are discussed with respect to the role mindfulness can play in the development of comprehensive, population-based suicide prevention programming and mental health promotion initiatives on college campuses.Item The impact of suicide prevention gatekeeper training on college students(2011-08) Swanbrow Becker, Martin Alan; Drum, David J.; McCarthy, ChristopherDespite its potential to enhance the mental health of college student populations, the efficacy of gatekeeper programs in connecting suicidal students with professional help is unclear. Potential negative side effects of peer helping programs, such as gatekeeper training, are rarely examined and there is not a sufficient body of evidence documenting the efficacy or safety of peer helping programs, despite their widespread use. The challenge of implementing a safe and effective peer based gatekeeper campus suicide prevention effort lies in balancing the benefits of connecting suicidal students to professional help more often and sooner, with the potential adverse mental health impacts of participation on gatekeepers. This study examines how a gatekeeper training program might increase suicidal student help seeking and measures the mental health impact of participation on Resident Assistants (RAs) trained in suicide prevention. This study will explore whether a more intensive helping role by the RA amplifies the effect of referring and securing professional help for suicidal students. This study also measures how differing the intensity of help provided by RAs impacts the gatekeepers’ own stress and suicidality levels. RAs will be trained under high versus low intensity helping conditions. RAs in the low intensity helping condition will be trained to identify potentially suicidal students and refer them for professional help. RAs in the high intensity helping condition will be trained to identify potentially suicidal students, engage them in a quasi-professional helping role, and refer them to professional help. This study will also explore whether promotion of telephone counseling as a helping resource will impact referrals to and utilization of professional help, either in-person or through telephone counseling.Item The impact of suicide prevention gatekeeper training on Resident Assistants(2013-08) Swanbrow Becker, Martin Alan; Drum, David J.College student suicide is a significant concern on university campuses and suicide prevention has become a focus for outreach intervention. While college counseling centers appear effective in helping students who present for treatment, suicidal students also seem to underutilize professional help. Gatekeeper training programs have emerged to help colleges and universities tap into existing student social networks to encourage early intervention. Gatekeeper training is a type of suicide prevention intervention used to encourage members of the university community to identify, engage, and refer suicidal students to professional help. Resident Assistants are often a focus of such training as they exist in the living environment of students and may be more able to identify student distress than other staff. However, the potential for adverse mental health impact on those RAs we call upon to help is not well understood and no studies to date have examined the impact of suicide prevention training on their mental health. Using data from surveys administered in connection with the participation of Resident Assistants in Suicide Prevention Training at The University of Texas at Austin, this study explores the mental health impact on RAs associated with their serving as gatekeepers. Multiple regression analyses were used to study the impact of intervention load, perceived role responsibility, the acquisition of suicide prevention content knowledge and perceived competency to perform the duties of a gatekeeper, and support-seeking behavior on the stress and distress of RAs over the course of a semester. Results suggest that RAs appear resilient to situational stress experienced with resident mental health interventions. RAs also appear to have considerable prior, personal experience with suicidal thinking and others who are suicidal. Additionally, they generally report not seeking support as often as they could, yet also increasingly turn to their co-workers in residence life for support. A repeated measures ANOVA analysis found that over the course of the semester RAs reported an increased threshold for engaging in interventions with residents and for seeking support for themselves. Implications for gatekeeper training and future research are discussed.Item Understanding suicide and applying current research to prevent college student suicide(2016-08) Smart, Kristin Alexis; Drum, David J.; Rude, StephanieSuicide is a leading cause of death around the world and is on the rise. Suicide is considered to be the second leading cause of death for college students, (Drum, Brownson, Denmark, & Smith, 2009) and the rate of suicide completion is between 6.5 and 7.5 per 100,000 students (Silverman, Meyer, Sloane, Raffel, & Pratt, 1997). Not only are completed suicides an issue on college campuses, but suicidal thoughts and ideation are extremely prominent in this population as well. Approximately 50 percent of college students report having considered suicide at some point in their lives. 18 percent of undergraduate students and 15 percent of graduate students report having seriously considered attempting suicide with 40 to 50 percent of those students reporting multiple episodes of suicidal thought. (Drum et al., 2009). This report will look at the warning signs and risk factors for suicidal ideation and attempts, theories of suicidality, reasons students do not seek treatment, motivations or events that lead to attempting or committing suicide, the most common methods, protective factors against suicide, and finally current and future prevention methods on college campuses.Item Why do suicidal students avoid seeking help? college students’ self-reported reasons for concealing suicide ideation and their relationship to attempting suicide(2011-08) Burton Denmark, Adryon Lindy; Rude, Stephanie Sandra; Drum, David J.; Brownson, Chris; Pituch, Keenan; Rochlen, AaronAs the second leading cause of death among college students, suicide has become an increasingly prominent focus for campus mental health initiatives. Suicide prevention efforts frequently rely on the induction of students with suicidal ideation into counseling services, either through self-referral or referrals from friends, family members, and university staff. However, nearly half of students who seriously contemplate taking their lives do not tell anyone that they are struggling with suicidal thoughts. Concealment of suicidal ideation, particularly from one‟s informal support network, is not well understood, and no studies to date have examined this phenomenon among college students. Using archival data from a national survey of suicidal crises among college students collected in 2006 by The National Research Consortium of Counseling Centers in Higher Education, this study explored college students‟ self-reported reasons for concealing their suicidal ideation. Content analysis was used to categorize students‟ qualitative responses to an open-ended question asking why they chose not to tell anyone about their suicidal thoughts. Nine primary themes emerged from this inquiry: (1) perceived lack of need for help, (2) concern for the well being of others, (3) dispositional orientation towards privacy, (4) perceived pointlessness of seeking help, (5) anticipated negative reactions from others, (6) internal negative evaluation of suicidality, (7) fear of repercussions, (8) avoidance of interference from others, and (9) perception of having no one to tell. Multilevel modeling was then used to explore associations between demographic characteristics, reasons for concealment endorsed, and likelihood of attempting suicide within the 12-month period under study. Findings from this study contribute to an understanding of help avoidance among suicidal individuals and have implications for campus suicide prevention programming.