Citation

Siau CS, Wee LH, Ibrahim N, Visvalingam U, Yeap LLL, Wahab S. J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 2018; 38(4): 227-234.

Affiliation

Ms. Siau and Dr. Ibrahim: Faculty of Health Sciences, National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Wee: Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Visvalingam: Putrajaya Hospital, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia. Ms. Yeap: Stats Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Wahab: UKM Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1097/CEH.0000000000000213

PMID

30036213

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: There is a lack of suicide-related training in the nonpsychiatric health professional's basic education. We suggest that a continuing education through a brief gatekeeper suicide training program could be a suitable platform to improve suicide-related knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes. This study aimed at examining the effectiveness of the Question, Persuade, Refer gatekeeper program on improving the knowledge, self-efficacy in suicide prevention, and understanding of/willingness to help suicidal patients of Malaysian hospital health professionals.

METHODS: The Question, Persuade, Refer program materials were translated and adapted for implementation in the hospital setting for nonpsychiatric health professionals. There were 159 (mean age = 35.75 years; SD = 12.26) participants in this study. Most participants were female (84.9%), staff/community nurses (52.2%), who worked in the general medical department (30.2%) and had no experience managing suicidal patients (64.2%). Intervention participants (n = 53) completed a survey questionnaire at pretraining, immediately after training, and after three months. Control participants (n = 106) were not exposed to the training program and completed the same questionnaire at baseline and three months later.

RESULTS: Significant improvement occurred among intervention participants in terms of perceived knowledge, self-efficacy, and understanding of/willingness to help suicidal patients immediately after training and when compared with the control participants 3 months later. Improvements in declarative knowledge were not maintained at the 3-month follow-up.

DISCUSSION: This study confirmed the short-term effectiveness of the gatekeeper training program. Gatekeeper suicide training is recommended for implementation for nonpsychiatric health professionals nationwide.

Language: en