Research reportEffectiveness of community facilitator training in improving knowledge, attitudes, and confidence in relation to depression and suicidal behavior: Results of the OSPI-Europe intervention in four European countries
Section snippets
Background
According to the World Health Organization, worldwide approximately one million people die from suicide every year (World Health Organization, 2003). About 90% of all suicides occur in the context of psychiatric disorders, with depression being the most prominent risk factor (Hegerl et al., 2009, Mann et al., 2005, Yoshimasu et al., 2008). Given the close relationship between depression and suicidal behavior, community-based action programs targeting simultaneously the improvement of care for
Design
As part of the OSPI-Europe multilevel intervention, standardized training programs on depression and suicide were provided to CFs in the following four OSPI-Europe intervention regions: Amadora (Portugal), Leipzig (Germany), Limerick (Ireland), and Miskolc (Hungary). The research design was a prospective single group pre–post test evaluation. In order to determine pre–post training effects among participants of the OSPI-Europe training program, semi-structured self-report questionnaires
Response rate
The analyses reported in the current article were performed on 1276 CFs who attended training. Immediately after training the response rate reached 73% (n=928), while at three to six months follow-up 35% of the CFs completed the questionnaires (n=451).
Participants’ characteristics
Table 1 provides an overview of the distribution of participants according to gender, age, years of schooling, professional experience, country, occupational group, previous training in suicide, and experience with suicide. Most of the
Discussion
The current international study reports on the results of the OSPI-Europe training program, implemented in eight different CF groups in four European countries. To assess the effectiveness of the training program we focused on intermediate outcomes that are linked directly to the operational goals and the content of the intervention, such as change in attitude toward depression, improved knowledge about suicide, and increased confidence to identifying persons at-risk of suicide. The effects of
Limitations and future research
Although the current findings provide strong support for the hypothesis that gatekeeper training programs can improve competencies for intervening with depressive and suicidal persons, the study has two limitations. First, the results are based on pre–post comparisons with no control group. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that apart from the training program other external factors contributed to the observed change in competencies in CFs. Possibly, the CFs participating in the
Conclusions
The study outcomes provide evidence indicating that gatekeeper trainings in community settings are successful in improving knowledge, reshaping attitudes, and boosting the confidence of gatekeepers. Overall, our findings demonstrate that these acquired traits are sustained after three to six months. Moreover, we argue that targeting those CF groups that are most in need of training and tailoring the content of the training program to the individual needs of the target group is the most
Role of funding source
Funding for this study was provided by the European Community׳s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement no. 223138. The funding partner had no role in the design of the study; in the data collection; in the analyses and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
The OSPI-Europe project has received funding from the European Community׳s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 223138. Thanks to Gert Scheerder who was involved in the early stages of the OSPI-Europe research and who prepared the statistical analysis.
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