Licensed clinical psychologists at a Wichita State developed the Suspenders4Hope Preventing Suicide Training with evidence-based suicide prevention strategies, offered online to multiple subgroups: university faculty, staff, students, health care workers and community members, as well as high school staff and students. A total of 865 participants provided retrospective pre/post responses, and the data were analyzed using paired samples t-tests and one-way ANOVA/Kruskal-Wallis tests.
Overall, participants in all subgroups, regardless of prior training, showed statistically significant pre/post increases across all measures. While no significant differences were found in learning between recruitment subgroups, variations were identified based on the number of previous trainings completed.
The findings support the effectiveness of a single suicide prevention training across diverse populations, suggesting important implications for targeting training efforts and optimizing resource allocation in high-need environments.