BACKGROUND: Suicide has been labeled a public health crisis. Training students in suicide prevention has been recommended. The objectives of this study were 1) test confidence and knowledge change associated with student pharmacists undergoing a discussion session led by a psychiatric pharmacist followed by Question Persuade Refer (QPR) training and 2) assess student feedback on the sessions.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Second-year student pharmacists attended discussion sections led by a psychiatric pharmacist and participated in QPR training as part of a 6-week Neurology-Psychiatry Integrated Pharmacotherapy course. Anonymous pre and post surveys were used to evaluate the program for changes in confidence and knowledge using independent sample t-tests. Likelihood to intervene and likelihood to seek additional training were measured and used as dependent variables in logistic ordinal regression models. Open-ended responses were coded using a descriptive qualitative content analysis approach.
RESULTS: All 111 students responded to both pre and post surveys. Students showed significant improvements in their confidence (p < 0.01) and knowledge (p < 0.01) related to suicide prevention. Three-quarters of students (73.0%) reported being very or extremely likely to intervene the next time they see warning signs of suicide. Confidence was significantly associated with future likelihood to intervene (p = 0.02). Students were interested in more examples, including video examples.