Suicide intervention training with law enforcement officers.

Law Enforcement Officers' (LEO) interactions with people facing mental health crises have risen exponentially since the era of deinstitutionalization. On average, about 10% of the individuals law enforcement interacts with daily have mental health challenges. Several factors influence the outcome of these interactions, not least of which is an officer's role as a gatekeeper as well as their training related to people with mental health challenges. We hypothesized that participating in the online QPR Training for Law Enforcement Officers would be associated with improved knowledge about suicide, attitudes to suicide and suicide intervention, and self-efficacy. Additionally, we hypothesized that these outcomes would be associated with greater use of intervention skills when encountering individuals at risk for suicide in the community. Results of our longitudinal analysis find that most of the participating officers reported some prior training and yet demonstrated statistically significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes after controlling for previous training. No significant changes were observed in LEO's use of intervention skills following training. We conclude by suggesting that there is substantial need for increased training; and offering possible conceptual and empirical explanations for the observed results.

Prevalence of Sexual Assault Victimization Among College Men, Aged 18-24: A Review.

PURPOSE: The current review provides summary and evaluation of prevalence data for the sexual victimization of college men ages 18 - 24. METHODS: Potential studies were selected by searching electronic bibliographic databases. Studies were initially selected for inclusion if they (1) assessed prevalence rates of sexual victimization on college campuses and (2) were published in a scholarly journal (3) in the English language. Utilizing this strategy, 3,973 studies were initially identified, of which 5 underwent complete review. RESULTS: All 5 studies returned results for sexual victimization of men on college campuses. However, identified prevalence data varies widely from 3.2% - 28.7% of the males surveyed. When incapacitation as a form of victimization was included in the study, college men as a whole appear to be most vulnerable to this form of sexual violence, though sexual minority males may have more heterogeneous experiences of victimization. CONCLUSIONS: Conceptualization of sexual victimization and wording of items attempting to assess prevalence rates likely lead to underestimation of true prevalence. Even with an incomplete understanding of prevalence, results suggest that continuing to assess prevalence may not be the most pressing need at this time. Research into the kinds of victimization college men face as well as education, prevention, and intervention within these areas may likely do more to positively advance the knowledge base.