Report
The War Within
Feb 17, 2011
In recent years, the rising rate of suicides by military personnel has generated concern among policymakers, military leaders, and the public at large. Based on a recommendation from an earlier RAND report on preventing suicide among military personnel, this report reviews the literature on gatekeeper models of suicide prevention to better understand what is known about the effectiveness of gatekeepers and gatekeeper training.
A Theoretical Model and Review of the Empirical Literature
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In recent years, the rising rate of suicides by military personnel has generated concern among policymakers, military leaders, and the public at large. Based on a recommendation from an earlier RAND report on preventing suicide among military personnel, this report reviews the literature on gatekeeper models of suicide prevention to better understand what is known about the effectiveness of gatekeepers and gatekeeper training. The report presents a theoretical model describing how gatekeeper training may influence individual knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes that may, in turn, result in intervention behaviors. It then reviews the evidence supporting each of the relationships presented in this model, and concludes with recommendations for advancing research in this field.
The research presented here was sponsored by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute (NDRI).
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