Suicide Prevention on College Campuses: The Relationship Between Knowledge, Prevention Exposure, and Stigma

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults aged 18 to 24. In an initiative to prevent suicide among students on college campuses, Congress awarded funds to implement the Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention Program. Through this initiative, campuses across the United States and its territories received grant funds to implement suicide prevention activities on their campuses. Macro International Inc. was contracted to evaluate the impact of these programs. Using stratified random sampling, college students were invited to participate in a Web-based survey, the Suicide Prevention Exposure, Awareness and Knowledge Survey (SPEAKS), where they answered questions about suicide, stigma around suicide, and suicide prevention efforts on campus.

The current investigation examines the relationship between students' level of knowledge about myths and facts around suicide, exposure to suicide prevention efforts on their campuses, and perception of stigma surrounding suicide. The Web-survey was administered on 52 college campuses and the number of respondents was 5227. The myths and facts section of the SPEAKS included 27 true/false items that were scored to determine “high knowledge” and “low knowledge.” The stigma scale consisted of 5 items rated on a scale of 0 to 3, which were totaled to determine the level of perceived stigma. Through the analysis of these data, the current study will determine the effect of knowledge and exposure to suicide prevention efforts on perceived stigma surrounding suicide. In addition, findings will include descriptive characteristics about respondent types and inferential analyses around descriptive statistics and stigma.