Perception of Suicide Risk in Mental Health Professionals

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 11; no. 2; p. e0149791
• Main Authors: Gale, Tim M, Hawley, Christopher J, Butler, John, Morton, Adrian, Singhal, Ankush
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 24.02.2016; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Attitude of Health Personnel; Bias; Biology and Life Sciences; Case reports; Clinical decision making; Decision making; Demographic aspects; Emotions; Evidence-based nursing; Female; Health Personnel - psychology; Health risks; Humans; Male; Medical personnel; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental disorders; Mental Health; Mental health care; Mental health personnel; Middle Aged; Occupational health; People and Places; Perception; Physicians; Psychiatric-mental health nursing; Psychiatry; Psychological aspects; Risk assessment; Risk factors; Risk perception; Self destructive behavior; Social psychology; Social Sciences; Studies; Suicidal behavior; Suicide; Suicides & suicide attempts; Workers; United Kingdom; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149791

This study employed an independent-groups design (4 conditions) to investigate possible biases in the suicide risk perception of mental health professionals. Four hundred participants comprising doctors, nurses and social workers viewed a vignette describing a fictitious patient with a long-term mental illness. The case was presented as being drawn from a sample of twenty similar clinical case reports, of which 10 were associated with an outcome of suicide. The participant tasks were (i) to decide whether the presented vignette was one of those cases or not, and (ii) to provide an assessment of confidence in that decision. The 4 conditions were used to investigate whether the presence of an associated face, and the nature of the emotional state expressed by that face, affected the response profile. In fact, there were no significant differences between conditions, but there was a significant bias across all conditions towards associating the vignette with suicide, despite the base rate being pre-determined at 50%. The bias was more pronounced in doctors and in male respondents. Moreover, many participants indicated substantial confidence in their decisions. The results are discussed in terms of availability bias and over-confidence bias.