Characterizing Postvention Suicide Loss Management Strategies Among Mental Health Clinicians in the United States

Objective For mental health clinicians (MHCs [Social Workers, Mental Health Counselors, Psychologists]) patient suicide loss is an “occupational hazard” and can cause serious psychological and behavioral consequences. Understanding which coping strategies drive long-term resilience is essential to developing evidence-based postvention. The Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (TMSC) can help guide development of evidence-based postvention plans/procedures. According to the TMSC, coping with stressful events like a suicide loss is categorized as either problem-focused–changing or addressing the source of stress—or emotion-focused—managing the emotional distress associated with the stressful event. The aim of the current study was to describe suicide loss coping strategies used by MHCs within the TSMC framework.Method N = 577 MHCs completed a pretraining cross-sectional survey prior to the STRONG STAR Training Initiative Postvention Training. MHCs who experienced a suicide loss were asked to rate the helpfulness of postvention coping strategies which were then categorized as either problem- or emotion-focused.Results 64.12% (n = 370) of MHCs experienced at least one suicide loss. Chi-square difference tests and post-hoc pairwise comparisons indicated emotion-focused strategies were most frequently used and most frequently rated asExtremely Helpful or Helpful; these emotion-focused strategies included consulting with colleagues, general social support from friends/family, and consulting/processing with a supervisor.Conclusions Suicide loss is an “occupational hazard” for MHCs and most MHCs use emotion-focused strategies to cope with the emotional impact of suicide loss, aligning with assertions of the TMSC. Implications for implementing evidence-based postvention plans/procedures in clinical practice agencies are discussed.