Abstracts Health Sciences

Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Support in Graduate Education: A Comparative Case Study

by Sarah Joyce Clapp

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for students in higher education, accounting or over 1,100 student losses each year (Appelbaum, 2006; National Mental Health Association & The Jed Foundation, 2002; Rodríguez, 2013; Silverman et al., 1997; Suicide prevention Resource Center, 2004; Wilcox et al., 2010). Moreover, recent data suggests that suicidal behaviors and prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders among the university student population is trending upward (Center of Collegiate Mental Health, 2020), highlighting suicide prevention and mental health (SP/MH) support and promotion as crucial considerations for student support at institutions of higher education. Data suggests that graduate students are at an elevated risk for suicide compared to undergraduate students (Silverman et al., 1997), however graduate students are underrepresented in literature exploring SP/MH in higher education (Bruns & Letcher, 2018; Evans et al., 2018; Garcia-Williams et al., 2014; Hyun et al., 2006; Moffit et al., 2014). Best practice for evidence-based prevention science advocates for a high fidelity between prevention programming and the target population (Castro et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2013). Therefore, it crucial that graduate students receive more focused attention in university SP/MH support and promotion research in order to inform guidelines and evidence-based practice for graduate student congruent SP/MH support and promotion in the campus setting. This study utilized a comparative case study methodology (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2016) to explore SP/MH support and promotion in graduate education. Four research questions guided this study: (1) What is the nature of the graduate academic programs’ participation in mental health support and suicide prevention initiatives for graduate students? “Nature” is defined as the current and historical creation, maintenance, and sustainment of a network of relationships with campus mental health resources and suicide prevention initiatives, and internal messaging and materials related to mental health and suicide prevention. (2) What perceptions to the graduate program stakeholders have pertaining to the academic program’s climate and culture related to suicide prevention, mental health, and the support of graduate student needs in these areas? (3) What are graduate students’ lived experiences of program climate and culture in relation to mental health and suicide prevention within their graduate academic program, specifically in regard to perceptions of stigma, attitudes toward help-seeking, awareness of behavioral health resources and information, and accessibility or barriers to connecting with resources? And (4) Drawing on the social ecological model’s levels of influence (individual, relational, community, societal), in what facets are graduate students perceiving the most support for mental health and suicide prevention, and what are the potential gaps between program mental health climate and culture and graduate student needs?A graduate education case was recruited from…