The National Suicide Call Back Service Carers and Bereaved Online Counselling Pilot: A Clinical Controlled Trial.
A clinical controlled trial of online synchronous chat versus telephone based counselling to reduce psychological distress in people who are bereaved by suicide and people who are carers for someone who is at risk of suicide.
Christopher Groot
160 participants
Jun 4, 2012
Interventional
Conditions
Summary
Over 2000 Australians die by suicide each year, and many more are at ongoing risk of suicide. The consequences are profound for those who are caring for someone who is at risk of suicide, and for those who are bereaved by suicide. The National Suicide Call Back Service (SCBS) is a professional mental health service that provides counselling by telephone to those at risk of suicide, those bereaved by suicide, and those who are caring for someone at risk of suicide. The SCBS has been funded to trial the delivery of its counselling service through online chat for carers and bereaved clients. Given the rapidly burgeoning nature of the internet, an increasingly broad section of the general population can access mental health services online with ease. Literature suggests that online counselling is effective in treating a range of mental health issues. However, to date, no study has evaluated the efficacy of online counselling for carers and those bereaved by suicide. The current study encapsulates two broad aims: 1) to examine the efficacy of counselling delivered through online, synchronous, text-based chat for carers and bereaved persons; 2) to examine the comparative efficacy of counselling delivered through telephone and online chat. Two groups of participants, carers and those bereaved by suicide, will choose to receive a program of weekly counselling from the SCBS by telephone or through online chat. Participants will be asked to complete a number of psychological questionnaires prior to commencing therapy and following its completion. Results will be analyzed to assess if any improvements in assessed psychological domains have occurred in conjunction with the delivery of therapy. Based on the relevant literature, it is hypothesised that both the telephone and video-conferencing counselling conditions will display simply benefits for carers and bereaved participants. It is hoped that findings from this project will contribute to our understanding of online therapies and provide a valuable evidence base upon which to build an ongoing SCBS online counselling service.
Eligibility
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Interventions
The clinical controlled trial will comprise two sub-studies corresponding to the two populations of interest, namely carers and those bereaved by suicide. Participants within the experimental group of each sub-study will choose to undertake a six week program of counselling with a single Suicide Call Back Service counsellor through online, synchronous, text-based chat. Participants in the control group of each sub-study will choose to receive the same six-week counselling program through telephone. The counselling sessions will be delivered once per week for six weeks. Each counselling session will be 1 hour in duration. The counselling intervention delivered in each sub-study is the same; it is only the sample that differs between sub-studies (Sub-study 1 = comprising carers only; Sub-study 2 = comprising bereaved individuals only).
Locations(1)
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ACTRN12612000767808