Helping actions given and received in response to suicide risk: Findings from an Australian nationally representative telephone survey

Abstract

We conducted a nationally representative telephone survey of 3000 Australian adults. We assessed helping responses toward people in severe distress and experiencing suicidal thoughts by asking whether respondents had undertaken 15 specified helping actions (10 recommended and 5 non-recommended actions) to support such a person. We also asked respondents who had experienced suicidal ideation in the last 12 months whether the most helpful person at that time had undertaken the 15 specified helping actions. We weighted the data to represent the Australian adult population, calculated percentage frequencies for the helping actions and used logistic regression to analyse whether sociodemographic ..