Developing and Evaluating Simulated Patient Scenarios to Teach Suicide Prevention Communication Skills to Student Pharmacists

Objective: To determine whether a brief educational intervention to train student pharmacists to manage individuals who exhibit suicide warning signs improves students’ knowledge and confidence to recognize suicide warning signs, ask about suicide, validate feelings and expedite referrals. Methods: This longitudinal, observational study was conducted with PharmD students from two pharmacy schools in 2019. Students completed a suicide prevention module adapted from the Veteran Administration’s SAVE suicide prevention gatekeeper training program that teaches how to communicate and refer individuals with suicide warning signs (completion rate = 67%). The module included a video case of an individual who exhibits suicide warning signs in a community pharmacy aisle, a brief didactic lecture, and a role-play practice session. To assess student self-reported changes in how they would react to the individual portrayed in the video case, students provided written responses before training and again after training. Text responses were coded by three independent raters. Students completed a multiple-choice pre-and post-test to assess knowledge and confidence; paired samples t-tests were calculated to examine changes in students’ knowledge and confidence scores. Results: Students’ (N=140) confidence and knowledge about how to recognize and manage suicide warning signs improved significantly. In addition, there was improvement in how many students directly asked about suicide and expedite da referral. Most students (86%) reported planning to incorporate what they learned into practice. Conclusions: In two schools of pharmacy, brief suicide prevention module developed and implemented in VA and adapted to the community pharmacy setting improved PharmD students’ knowledge and confidence to interact with an individual who exhibits suicide warning signs. SAVE teaches students how to communicate with refer an individual in crisis in a way that can be integrated into busy pharmacy workflows, which may be why many students planned to incorporate it into their practice.Doctor of Pharmac