Citation

Mueller KL, Chirumbole D, Naganathan S. Community Ment. Health J. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10597-020-00575-x

PMID

32065318

Abstract

Individuals with suicidal ideation (SI) frequently present to the emergency department (ED). We hypothesized that CALM: Counseling on Access to Lethal Means training improves non-physician provider comfort with delivering an ED-based counseling intervention on lethal means restriction. Ten non-physician intervention counselors who currently provide CALM to ED patients presenting with SI were surveyed for demographics, prior experience caring for patients with SI, prior CALM experience, comfort providing CALM, and which method of training most improved comfort with CALM. Survey response rate was 100%. Following CALM training, 80% of respondents expressed confidence in their ability to counsel patients on safe storage of lethal means, although 50% felt that a script most improved comfort. Most survey respondents reported feeling comfortable counseling suicidal patients on safe storage of lethal means, but that the addition of a script for the counseling session improved comfort more than the online CALM training.

Language: en

Keywords

Counseling on access to lethal means; Emergency department; Emergency medicine; Suicide prevention