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Some mental health support workers or mental health volunteers have a varied type and amount of training. Some training may or may not involve learning ways to ask and deal with clients who become suicidal.  Training may not be the only factor that effects whether or not we feel comfortable asking and talking to people and clients about suicide. Other factors can be: beliefs, skills, attitudes, self-efficacy, the organisation we work in, and the society we live in.

 

Purpose: The aim of this project is to understand how these factors, for mental health workers, influence confidence in asking and talking about suicide with people and what factors in particular promote effective suicide monitoring and interventions for mental health clients.



 

What's it all about?

What does the study hope to achieve?

The Project

Current statistics indicate suicide is within the top four leading causes of death in New Zealand. Having a mental illness is considered to be the biggest risk factor for suicide. It is important to understand the attitudes and skills of the frontline mental health workers who care for those at risk of suicide.

This study aims to investigate factors that influence Mental Health Support Workers’ confidence in talking to clients about suicide. This study was derived from my experience of a lack of training in suicide prevention and intervention for support workers within mental health organisations in New Zealand. I found there was a stronger emphasis placed on other aspects of health and safety (e.g., fire training and medication training). This apparent priority in training highlights a disparity in regards to the inherent risks associated with clients who experience mental illness and increased suicide risk. To my knowledge research on this topic within New Zealand is scarce.

 

The research seeks to answer the following questions:

 

1. What training is offered to Mental Health Support Workers in New Zealand related to suicide intervention?

 

2. What factors (including training, self-efficacy, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and skills) influence the likelihood that mental health frontline staff (e.g., Mental Health Support Workers) will feel confident in actually talking to suicidal clients about suicide?

 

3. How might these factors be worked with to encourage mental health frontline staff with suicide intervention for their clients on multiple levels (e.g., individual and organisational levels)? 

 

This study seeks to answer these questions using a mixed methodology – an online questionnaire and face-to-face interview.

It is important to acknowledge how high ranking Mental Health Frontline Staff (MHFS) actually are when it comes to considering the preventative role they play - particularly as a resource available to mental health consumers. In considering factors, it is important to understand both the supportive and inhibitive factors on multiple levels that might affect the confidence of staff in acting to prevent suicide. Training is not necessarily the only component to enhance adequate responses to suicidal clients, but it can serve to encourage the development of a direct interventional response to suicide. Furthermore, to successfully utilise MHFS as a resource for suicide prevention within the mental health sector, we need to understand them and their attitudes.

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