Examining the effectiveness of an online suicide prevention gatekeeper training

The purpose of the study was to identify the effectiveness of an online suicide prevention gatekeeper training at the University of Iowa compared to previous research, other gatekeeper trainings, and to assess differences between faculty and staff trainees. Participants were faculty, staff, and students at the University of Iowa that completed the Kognito College Students or the Kognito Faculty and Staff module. To determine the effectiveness, participants completed program evaluation surveys at pre-training, immediate post-training, and six-months after completion of the training. The surveys assessed four gatekeeper appraisal scales: Gatekeeper Knowledge and Beliefs, Gatekeeper Reluctance, Gatekeeper Self-Efficacy, and Gatekeeper Experiences. The first three scales assessed the participant’s perception of their current gatekeeper skills and the last scale assessed gatekeeper behaviors in which the gatekeeper engaged.

Results of the study indicate that the training was comparably effective to previous research on Kognito and other in-person gatekeeper trainings in increasing gatekeeper skills. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in performance between faculty/staff and student participants. There is currently insufficient evidence to suggest that a specific gatekeeper training is significantly more effective than any other training. Future research, should continue to investigate the effectiveness of suicide prevention approaches and evaluate the specific factors which make gatekeeper trainings effective.