Procedures Used in Crisis Intervention by Suicide Prevention Agencies

To determine how suicide prevention agencies function, a mail in survey with a 22 item questionnaire was sent to 31 agencies in large urban areas of the United States. 24 agencies replied which reported handling 41,0202 calls for help in 1966. Protocol for handling callers was evaluated. This study provided limited evidence that these suicide prevention programs work and it was determined that better studies of all agencies, in particular follow up studies of emergency callers, were needed to determine their effectiveness.