Preliminary evaluation of a university-based suicide intervention project: impact on participants

Suicide and associated mental health problems are a major issue for 18–25 year-olds in Australia, many of whom are studying at university. The Suicide Intervention Project (SIP) is a peer-based mental health promotion program, designed as a partnership between the University of Canberra and the YWCA of Canberra. In its first year, the SIP trained 56 participants to be better able to respond to the mental health problems of their university peers. The present study evaluated the SIP in terms of changes experienced by 42 of its first participants. Specifically, it was anticipated that there would be improvements in participants’ attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, self-efficacy and intentions toward talking to other university students about personal feelings and mental health problems. The social connectedness and mental health literacy of participants were also expected to improve. Results indicated the SIP did have a positive effect on participants, with almost all measures changing from pre- to post-test in the expected directions. Unexpectedly, however, none of these factors correlated with the actual behaviour of talking to other students about feelings, which was measured two weeks after program completion. Results are discussed in terms of the impact of the SIP program on the wider university community.