The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted university students' mental health, increasing depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation.We developed a 48-minute video for training student suicide gatekeepers.This study was to evaluate the usefulness of a gatekeeper training video in enhancing university students' suicide prevention skills on campus, as measured by subjective and objective indicators.In this randomized controlled trial, university students (mean age 20 years) were allocated to video-viewing (n=120) or control (n=131) groups.Assessments at baseline (t1) and six-month followup (t2: n=103 vs. n=116) measured self-confidence and objective indicators (depression knowledge, detection skills, suicide response).At t1, the video-viewing group showed significantly higher gatekeeper confidence (64% vs. 41%, p < 0.001), depression knowledge (4/5 items, p < 0.05), and detection skills (4/5 items, p < 0.05).At t2, while confidence differences diminished (57% vs. 50%, p = 0.29), superior performance remained in knowledge and skills (3/5 items each, p < 0.05).Our study suggests that a video-based gatekeeper training program can be useful for university students to become suicide gatekeepers, maintaining efficacy over a period of six months.This intervention provides an expandable approach to implementing a suicide prevention program across a campus, and is very useful during periods of limited direct support, such as during a pandemic or other public health crisis.
Iwasawa et al. (2026) studied this question.