National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
suicidepreventionlifeline.org
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
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Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#2Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully.
E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#3Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
I don't have any numbers, but I know at least 3 people who have used them in the past. When I was younger, I used an anonymous online suicide hotline site (though I don't recall which), which at least made me stop and think, which is often enough.
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#4Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
Probably more effective earlier. Someone living while being horribly depressed all the time isn't exactly a victory, either. I assume suicide hotlines can refer depressed and "suicidal ideation" people, who aren't yet actually killing themselves, to help as well.
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#5[deleted]
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#6Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
I just tried searching Google Scholar, and it turned up studies showing effectiveness:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1521/suli.33.4.400.252... - "Independent raters measured callers' suicidality and mental state at the beginning and end of 100 taped counselling sessions. Changes in suicidality and mental state were measured using a reliable rating scale developed for the study. Significant decreases in suicidality and significant improvement in mental state were found to occur during the course of counselling sessions, suggesting positive immediate impact."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1521/suli.2007.37.3.33... - "Significant decreases in suicidality were found during the course of the telephone session, with continuing decreases in hopelessness and psychological pain in the following weeks."
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1022269314076... - "Outcome measures showed observer evaluations of decreased depressive mood from the beginning to the end in 14% of calls, decreased suicidal urgency ratings from the beginning to the end in 27% of calls, and reaching a contract in 68% of calls, of which 54% of contracts were upheld according to follow-up data."
In case people don't know this: these hotlines also help people who are concerned about friends and family members, and there are email-based options like http://www.samaritans.org/.
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#7Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
hm. wrong link... anyway, a re-run:
A friend of mine worked for one for a while. She says it is a mixed bag, you win a lot, you lose some too. It's the toughest thing anybody could pick to do as a job. She's a pretty successful businesswoman and decided to take a years break and looked for something useful to do, ended up manning one of the phones.
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#8Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
Yes there is solid research that it helps - see @britta's comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047160
Anecdotally I worked as a part-time volunteer on a general counselling service for a couple of years in my twenties - which included some suicide calls. A goodly chunk of the time it felt like you made a difference. We occasionally got "thank you" calls weeks/months later to say that we'd stopped folk doing things that they would now regret (sometimes from folk you thought you hadn't helped...)
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#9Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
I actually worked for the national hotline as a volunteer. I worked at a local crisis hotline in the Maryland area, and each one of these places ties into the national hotline, as it does (and please feel free to troll me) a round-robin process and tries to find the closest center given the area code of the caller. I personally handled less than a dozen of these calls. I cannot go into details because we all sign NDA's (surprise, surprise), but I will tell you in all my time we never had someone commit suicide. Also, even volunteer people like myself are trained in suicidology assessment, and getting a stage 3 person warrants you calling law enforcement and/or emergency services given your discretion. In my over a year there, I saw that happen only once when they thought it would be close. I personally talked down many people, and it was my personal opinion those who called the hotline were rarely those were at a level so bad they were going to do it on the phone.
Just my two cents.
Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
#10Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.
I called one once, it's pretty effective, even though his advice didn't work or was dumb, I think just having somebody to listen to you is good enough, during that time nobody, meaning none of my friends, was answering my calls.