Strengthening suicide prevention: Evaluating a capacity building programme for community health workers in India

Abstract

The study evaluated a training programme adapted from the WHO mhGAP to enhance suicide prevention knowledge, attitudes, and confidence among 436 Community Health Workers (CHWs) in India. A pre-post intervention design assessed outcomes at four time points using a structured questionnaire, analysed via repeated-measures ANOVA. Mean knowledge scores increased from 6.32 ± 0.14 at baseline to 11.12 ± 0.12 post-training, then levelled off at 10.10 ± 0.14 and 10.10 ± 0.13 at 6 and 12 months, respectively; similarly, mean confidence scores increased from 4.96 ± 0.11 to 7.84 ± 0.11, remaining at 7.28 ± 0.10 and 7.44 ± 0.10 at the same time points. Mean attitude scores changed slightly from 41.00 ± 0.38 to 42.72 ± 0.43 over 12 months, indicating increased negative attitudes. Knowledge and confidence scores across time points were statistically significant (p < 0.05); however, this was not observed for attitude scores. Improvements were associated with CHW cadre and educational status. Post-training, CHWs demonstrated sustained improvements in knowledge and confidence for identifying, referring, and managing suicidal behaviour over 12 months, with those having lower baseline scores improving uniformly following the programme.