Outcome Evaluation of an Online Suicide Prevention Program for Postgraduate Year Residents during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-2022)

10.6145/jme.202303_27(1).0008

Chia-Ta Chan；Chia-Yi Wu；Ming-Been Lee；Chun-Ying Chen；I-Ming Chen；Chia-Ming Chang

suicide ； suicide prevention ； gatekeeper training ； community medicine ； medical education online

Journal of Medical Education

27卷1期（2023 / 03 / 01）

75 - 87

英文

Background and purpose: A great majority of suicidal decedents visited physicians before their death. Thus physicians are important gatekeepers for suicide prevention. The study aimed to: 1) assess the effectiveness of a 3-hour online suicide prevention program (SPP) for the post-graduate year (PGY) residents; 2) to compare the teaching outcome between online-SPP (2020-2022) and in-person SPP (2017-2019). Methods: Participants who attended the online-SPP and completed a post-course survey were recruited for the study. The contents of the small group tutorial contained three domains including cognition, affection, and behaviors to enhance the willingness to become a suicide prevention gatekeeper. The survey questions comprised: 1) four-item Teaching Effectiveness Assessment Scale to assess the level of satisfaction on a 5-point Likert's scale from poor to excellent for expected goal, teaching skill, program benefit, and overall satisfaction; 2) two questions regarding the willingness to use suicide screening tool (five-item Brief Symptom Rating Scale, BSRS-5) and implement gatekeeper's skills in practice. Results: In total, 805 participants completed online-SPP. Results indicated the ratings on program effectiveness were very satisfactory on all 4 dimensions in a three-year period. A majority of participants expressed positive willingness to apply the -screening tool (98.2%) and gatekeeper skills (99.6%) in clinical practices. The online-SPP presented significantly better teaching effectiveness on 4 dimensions than the in-person SPP. Stepwise regression analysis on the online-SPP outcome revealed that course benefit and teaching skills significantly predicted the willingness of using BSRS-5; only course benefit significantly predicted the willingness to apply gatekeeper skills. Conclusions: Across three-year observation, the brief online-SPP demonstrated the participants' positive responses on four dimensions of teaching effectiveness and high levels of willingness to be a gatekeeper.

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