Is training in psychology associated with increased responsiveness to suicidality?

Training is associated with improved responses to suicidal individuals, but it is not clear whether any training helps or whether the training needs t o be in psychology. The authors compared beginning and advanced psychology graduate students and practicing psychologists to nursing graduate students . A total of 139 participants in these 4 groups read a vignette about Pat, who had either contemplated suicide or never contemplated suicide: then com pleted questions about how they would respond to a distressed telephone cal l from Pat, how suicidal they thought Pat was, and how good a no-suicide co ntract would be for Pat. Advanced students and psychologists were more help ful in their responses than beginning graduate students, who were more help ful than nursing graduate students. However, all participants noticed wheth er Pat had contemplated suicide, and all were faintly positive about no-sui cide contracts.