Development of national undergraduate curriculum in suicide prevention

What is this study?

This study is a response to Action 5.4.4 of the Connecting for Life (CfL) strategy which recommends the incorporation of suicide prevention training as part of third-level curricula of the relevant professions. The project involves four phases as outlined by Sinclair et al. (2020). Phase 1 is a feasibility study detailing the potential for implementing a suicide prevention training curriculum for healthcare undergraduate and postgraduate students in higher education institutions in Ireland. Phase 1 will feed into the later design phase (Phase 2), implementation phase (Phase 3) and the monitoring and reviewing phase (Phase 4). Phases 1 and 2 were addressed in 2022.

Project Aims

• To examine the feasibility of the project through literature review, survey and degree course mapping (Phase 1).
• To design a flexible suicide prevention module for undergraduate healthcare students for implementation across all higher education institutions in Ireland (Phase 2).
• To pilot the module with at least one cohort of undergraduate students in the academic year 2023/2024 (Phase 3).
• To evaluate the implementation of the pilot delivery (Phase 4)

Personnel Involved

National Suicide Research Foundation: Dr Paul Corcoran, Dr Clíodhna O’Brien, Dr Eve Griffin, Ms Kerrie Gallagher. National Office for Suicide Prevention: Ms Sarah Woods, Prof. Philip Dodd, Ms Ailish O’Neill