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Impact of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
- We are deeply grateful to Dr. John Kalafat (in memoriam) for his invaluable insights about crisis hotline interventions and contributions to the planning and implementation of this project. The authors also want to thank Richard Ramsay, MSW, William Lang, PhD, and Kathryn VanBoskirk, MSW, for providing their expertise on the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) program and contributing to the development of ASIST-specific outcome measures. This project was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (R01MH082537-01A1) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) through a subcontract from Macro International. Dr. Cross received additional support from NIMH (K23MH73615; K23MH073615-03S1).
Abstract
We examined the impact of the implementation of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) across the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's national network of crisis hotlines. Data were derived from 1,507 monitored calls from 1,410 suicidal individuals to 17 Lifeline centers in 2008–2009. Callers were significantly more likely to feel less depressed, less suicidal, less overwhelmed, and more hopeful by the end of calls handled by ASIST-trained counselors. Few significant changes in ASIST-trained counselors' interventions emerged; however, improvements in callers' outcomes were linked to ASIST-related counselor interventions, including exploring reasons for living and informal support contacts. ASIST training did not yield more comprehensive suicide risk assessments.