Components of Effective Suicide Prevention in the USAF

描述（由申请人提供）：本申请首先是一项关于实施与自杀事件减少之间关系的研究。1997年，美国空军全面实施了一项复杂的、多方面的自杀预防计划。因此，美国空军提供了一个很好的环境，研究一个多方面的计划的哪些组成部分是最有效的产生预期的结果。虽然有一个激增的兴趣的作用，执行在确定一个方案的有效性，有相对较少的实证研究，专门调查执行和预防和/或干预结果之间的关系。对于这项研究，我们已经定义了五个核心，功能组件的空军自杀预防计划（AFSPP）的基础上，自成立以来，已构成该计划的十一项举措。然而，我们目前对AFSPP有效性的理解仅限于该计划的明显成功，这是基于对这11项倡议的实施与自杀事件和其他相关结果下降之间的时间关联的非特定理解。由于几个相关的原因，在这个时候进行这项研究很重要。首先，空军正在进行的计划工作将大大受益于对一个非常复杂、多方面的计划的功能组成部分的更具体的理解。第二，将AFSPP复制到新的环境可能具有很大的科学价值。空军在其计划方面有着良好的记录，是为数不多的以社区为基础的自杀预防计划之一，而且可能被证明是为科学服务的典范。作为美国人口的样本，空军由一个健康的开放队列组成，这有助于减少利用临床或精神病学样本进行自杀研究所固有的选择偏差。因此，我们的研究结果可能对其他相对健康的人群具有重要意义，包括大学生和中年男女。然而，有一个未解决的，但正在进行的辩论如何最好地联合收割机不同的网站与足够的灵活性，允许成功地与不同的人口特征和文化规范的社区的保真度的感知需要。如果我们能够更好地理解AFSPP的哪些核心组件可以跨站点灵活翻译，同时保持与这些组件相关的全部功能，那么这项研究的数据将对心理健康预防领域具有重大意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is first and foremost a study of the relationship between implementation and reductions in events of suicide. In 1997, the United States Air Force had fully implemented a complex, multifaceted suicide prevention program. As such, the United States Air Force provides an excellent environment in which to study which components of a multifaceted program are most effective in producing the desired outcomes. While there has been a surge of interest in the role that implementation plays in determining the effectiveness of a program, there are relatively few empirical studies that specifically investigate the relationship between implementation and prevention and/or intervention outcomes. For this study, we have defined five core, functional components of the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program (AFSPP) based on the Eleven Initiatives that have constituted the program since its inception. However, our current understanding of the effectiveness of the AFSPP has been limited to the apparent success of the program based on a nonspecific understanding of the temporal association between implementation of these Eleven Initiatives and declines in events of suicide and other related outcomes. Conducting this study at this time is important for several related reasons. First, on-going programmatic efforts in the Air Force will greatly benefit from attaining a more concrete understanding of the functional components of what has been a very complex, multifaceted program. Second, replication of the AFSPP to new settings is potentially of great scientific value. The Air Force has a good track record with its program, is one of the few community based programs for suicide prevention in a very large population, and may prove to be an exemplary model of service to science. As a sample of the U.S. population the Air Force is comprised of a healthy open cohort, which serves to reduce the selection bias inherent in studies of suicide that utilize clinical or psychiatric samples. As such, our findings may be significant for other relatively healthy populations, including college students and men and women in the middle years of life. However, there is an unresolved but on-going debate about how best to combine the perceived need for fidelity across different sites with sufficient flexibility that permits successful engagement with communities with diverse demographic characteristics and cultural norms. The data from this study will have great significance for the field of mental health prevention in general if we can reach a greater appreciation for which of the core components of the AFSPP can be flexibly translated across sites, while at the same time maintaining the full functionality associated with those components.