A Survey of Telephone Answering Services in Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention Agencies

The telephone service established by directors of suicide prevention & crisis intervention services is given little consideration. In investigating what really happens under various systems in use, a series of 76 calls were placed to 19 different emergency crisis services in the U.S. Marked differences in service across the 8 systems were identified. Results indicate crisis centres are unknowingly providing inferior service unless they maintain maximum 24 hour control.