Citation

Almaliah-Rauscher S, Ettinger N, Levi-Belz Y, Gvion Y. Clin. Psychol. Psychother. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/cpp.2426

PMID

31989723

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to broaden the understanding regarding mental health professionals' willingness to treat and likeliness to refer suicidal patients to other professionals. More specifically, our aim was to examine the effect of the patient's gender and suicidal severity, as well as the mental health professionals' personal and professional characteristics, on the willingness to treat and likeliness to refer. 331 mental health professionals were randomly exposed to one of four case descriptions of a hypothetical patient in a crisis. Cases shared a common background story however differed in terms of the patient's gender and suicidal condition (high vs. low). The exposure was followed by questionnaires aimed to reflect the subject's evaluation of the patient's suicidal severity, the subject's sense of competence and responsibility, willingness to treat or likeliness to refer, emotional contagion, and depression.

RESULTS indicate a lower willingness to treat and higher likelihood to refer suicidal patients compared to depressed patients. In addition, subjects exposed to the high suicidality cases showed a greater willingness to treat as well as refer female patients compared to male patients. A sense of competence was found as the strongest predictor of mental health professionals' willingness to treat and likelihood to refer and emotional contagion was found as a predictor of likelihood to refer. It is important that mental health professionals be aware of the low tendency to treat suicidal patients especially if they are male. Further research should explore suitable training programs and their application in the mental health curriculum.

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Language: en

Keywords

countertransference; mental health; risk assessment; suicide; suicide prevention; therapist