The Influence of Training and Experience on Mental Health Practitioners' Comfort Working With Suicidal Individuals

Suicide risk is a common issue that arises during the course of mental health treatment, and death by suicide can occur while receiving treatment. Patient death by suicide is the number one fear reported by mental health practitioners. To identify what may contribute to this fear, we sought to examine relations between suicide-focused training, professional experience, fear of suicide-related outcomes, comfort with and skills in working with suicidal patients, and knowledge of suicide risk and protective factors. The sample included 289 primarily masters- or doctoral-level mental health practitioners from a wide array of backgrounds. Multivariate analyses of variance and correlations indicated that practitioners who felt their training was sufficient endorsed significantly lower fear of patient death by suicide and significantly greater comfort and skills in working with suicidal patients, as well as greater knowledge of suicide risk and protective factors. Practitioners who worked with suicidal patients reported more knowledge of suicide risk and protective factors but did not report significantly different fear of patient death by suicide or patient suicide attempt than practitioners who did not work with suicidal patients. These results suggest that suicide-focused training may be critical to reducing practitioner fear of negative suicide-related outcomes and increasing comfort working with suicidal individuals. Providing such training may improve practitioners' knowledge and skills, enhancing clinical outcomes.