Preventing Suicide and Depression: A Training Program for Long-Term Care Staff

Abstract

Approximately 5 percent of those sixty-five and older live in long-term care facilities (1.5 million). Neither suicide and depression among the elderly who reside in long-term care facilities nor prevention techniques are well-understood by staff. This article discusses the development of a curriculum designed to train long-term care staff in preventing suicide among the elderly and the results of a pilot test of a training program based on that curriculum. The participants ( N=43) significantly improved their scores from pre- to post-test on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices subtests. The knowledge areas in which staff performed the most poorly at pre-test were related to identifying appropriate primary and secondary interventions, the relationship between dementia and suicide, methods of self-destruction used by the elderly, and understanding of depression in the elderly. There was a significant relationship between pre-test and post-test scores on all subtests. Staff with higher levels of education had significantly higher pre- and post-test scores on the knowledge and attitudes subtests. More experienced staff had significantly higher post-test scores on the practices subtest. A large majority of the participants had highly positive attitudes toward the program and thought the program had been very useful or useful to them as caregivers. The study demonstrated the need for staff training related to suicide prevention in long-term care as well as the usefulness of even a brief training.