Essay on Suicide Prevention Programs: Raising Awareness & Providing Resources

Introduction

Over the years, different programs have been used in an attempt to minimize suicide rates among teens and young adults, using different approaches. Community- and school-based suicide prevention programs have been developed and implemented to help people from committing suicide. Community-based programs focus mostly on reducing the suicide rates by raising awareness, providing information, training, resources, and supports to those who have thoughts of suicide and attempted suicide in the community as well as exploring the history and health conditions leading to suicide in the individual (Kutcher, Wei, & Baxter ,2019). With students being the primary focus, there is usually high participation rate in such programs because all students are exposed (Zalsman et al., 2016).

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Behavioural health awareness programs are particularly promising in reducing suicide rates among the youth. These strategies seek to create mental health awareness among the members of community, and are targeted to all age groups. In particular, these strategies seek to utilize depression-preventive strategies to reduce suicide rates (Greden, Garcia-Tosi, & Harrington, 2019). Purebl (2017) post that community-based awareness programs have been of significant help in combating depressive disorders, which in turn reduces the suicide rates significantly. Fazel and Betancourt (2018) argue that such programs are particularly beneficial to refugee children and teens, as well as students who have been exposed to certain epidemiologically-established risk factors.

School-based programs also play a key role in preventing adolescents or youth from committing suicide by passing out factual information. The current generation digs deep on the information mostly extracted from the social media platforms which may not contain deceiving contents in regards to suicide (Calear et al., 2018). Calear and his colleagues (2018) argue out that through such information, rumors and myths about suicide are dispelled and rather promotes problem-solving behaviors among the teens (pp470). The programs could as well be a self-esteem promoter to the individuals who have suicidal thoughts as outlined by Fazel & Betancourt (2018) in their work.

Depression-preventing or awareness education strategies are some of the most effective ways of reducing suicide among the school-going youth (Kutcher & Baxter 2019). Surgenor et al (2016) propose that this can be best achieved by integrating Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs with other subjects in the curriculum of the middle and high schools (pp. 414). They argue that such an integrative approach not only helps the target group learn about depression but also helps them seek help in regards to mental health, especially within their school context (Surgenor, Quinn, & Hughes, (2016). Increasing mental-health services accessibility to students, especially by bringing such services within the school contexts has been shown to work greatly in reducing cases of depression-related suicides (Zalsman et al., 2016). In a ten-year study, Zalsman et al (2016) found out that providing such services to students had work particularly well in reducing depressive disorder amongst the teens (pp. 648). Kelly et al (2019) posit that depression education is a primary preventive measure in combating suicide amongst school-going teens, especially in middle schools and colleges.

Psychosocial determinants of suicide ideation and attempts have been linked to negative reputation and drug and substance abuse among the school students and teens. Utah Department of Health Office of Public Health (2018), in their assessment and report on adolescents, found out that misfortune, lack of parental affection, an uncontrolled alcohol intake, anxiety attached to sexual activities were linked to influence suicidal ideation. A qualitative study published by O'Connor & Pirkis (Eds.). (2016) in their book, The international handbook of suicide prevention, on the same population, shows that lack of knowledge on the availability of counselors, societal dejection, prejudicial accusations from the public on undesirable behaviors and reduced social support are connected to suicidal attempts among the adolescents. Subsequent quantitative study done on the similar study population determined that suicidal conceptualization is common among these adolescents, gender based violence, family negligence, low self-esteem and negative feeling from the partners increased the risks of suicidal attempts.

In the lives of adolescents especially the school goers have peer groups and this has a direct impact on their mental health as well as social life up bringing as well as suicidal mental image. A study conducted by Kelly and colleagues (2020) demonstrates that peers are the most important social support base for teens and may as well be a risk factor for suicidal attempts for instance, when a member is not accepted depending on the unbecoming mannerisms showcased by his/her errands. Contextually, the findings of a study done by Hoffman and Bearman (2015, indicates that peers could be a well look for factor while dealing with school going teens as Ferlatte and colleagues(2019) highlights that peers are likely the highly used evidence on the topic of mates and influences on cases of suicides among the adolescents.

The rate of suicide among the youths has been on an ascending phase (Pandey et al., 2019). According to the findings of Pandley and colleagues, they argue that between 20019 and 2017, suicidal attempts as a result of depression among kids of ages 14 to 17 increased by more than 60%. With school and community-based prevention models, the prevalence is likely to reduce to lower rate as compared to the current situation (O'Connor & Pirkis (Eds), 2016).

This study seeks to address the problem of suicide among young Vietnamese Americans. The study proposes to use Social Support Program to achieve this goal. The program will focus on young adults from the target group since the research seeks to identify ways to prevent or minimize suicide rates among the said youth, especially the cases associated with mental illnesses. The results should be generalized for the Vietnamese American youths, especially from the region of study. However, since the study will be based in an area with the highest concentration of Vietnamese Americans, the findings may apply to the other areas as well.

The program targets young Vietnamese Americans aged between 18 and 25. The Vietnamese Americans are described as any Americans with some Vietnamese descent, whether wholly or partially (Nguyen, 2018). Historically, this ethnic group was exposed to depressing conditions, especially after the Vietnam war. This phenomenon places them at a disadvantage, vis-a-vis mental health. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to propose an intervention to reduce the suicide rates among these youths, mainly due to mental health problems.

The study will focus on the state of California, Orange County. Specifically, the research will focus on Garden Grove and Westminster cities. These cities (and California at large) have the largest concentration of Vietnamese Americans in America. Orange County hosts the most significant number of Vietnamese Americans, at 6.1 % of the County's population. There are 184,153 Vietnamese Americans in Orange County, which represent about 8.57% of the total population of Vietnamese Americans (Nguyen, 2018).

Sample selection criteria

The targeted group will be young adults with at least some history of mental health issues. The requirement will be ethnicity: the persons have to be Vietnamese Americans to be included in the sample. The selection method will encourage fair representation from all categories of life as long as the age limit is observed. Only young adults aged between 18 and 25 years will be included in the final sample. A preliminary sample of about 500youths will be recruited via online platforms. This number will be used to estimate the number of youths to be included in the sample. Random sampling programs will be used to come up with a sample.

To ensure accuracy and increase validity, the research will utilize stratification sampling to obtain the final sample. The computer program will be designed to pick random names based on certain criteria. The final stratified sample will be used for the study. Due to financial limitations, the research will only focus on a sample of about 50youths, half of whom will be exposed to the social support program, and the half will be exposed to other methods, and the results will later be co pared to make relevant conclusions.

Design of experimental methodology

This study will employ Classical Experimental Design because the survey is a true experiment. By principle, designs are generally considered as true experiments if they exhibit three primary characteristics, which include; pre- and post-testing, independent and dependent variables, and experimental and control groups (Kite & Whitley, 2018). A true experiment is defined as one in which the "efficacy of the intervention is tested by comparing the results of exposing on the group to the interventions and another one that does not receive the intervention" (Mutz et al., 2019).

The group that is exposed to the treatment or the intervention is known as the experimental group while the other one is called the control group. Due to ethical issues, this study will employ a slightly altered version where the control group receives "normal treatment" (Mutz et al., 2019) instead of a placebo. This group is referred to as the "comparison group" instead of the control group. This is done to cool down the debate about ethical issues surrounding control group treatments. So, in this study, the comparison group will be used instead of the control group. Research ethics principles require that research should be beneficial to all parties involved as well as the public (Dingwall et al., 2017). The sample will be generated via randomized stratification, making the example examinable by the experimental design. The comparison group in this study will be exposed to some conventional treatments, while the experimental group will be exposed to the proposed program, Social Support Program.

Both the comparison and the experiment groups will be in the cities of interest, Garden Grove, and Westminster. The selection criteria will be such that each city will produce some members for each group. That is to say that some of the members in the comparison group will be taken from Garden Grove city and some from Westminster. Random selection of members in each group from each city will ensure that the members are as equivalent as possible. Additionally, the stratification will also contribute to the equivalence. Overall, the subjects belong to the same ethnicity, which can be considered a point of equivalence. Also, the stratification saw the members grouped into two strata, like age-sets. The grouping makes the two groups as equivalent as possible. To avoid any selection bias, the selection will be random.

Minimizing the Risks of Threats to Internal Validity.

Using randomization instead of the non-equivalent group, to minimize any errors resulting from selection biases, the sample will be chosen purely by chance. Though random samples may be hard to achieve due to other factors like avoidance of gender bias, this researcher will try as much as possible to randomize the sampling process. Randomized samples help in decreasing the chances of error (Berger et al., 2017) since each subject has an equal chance of being selected). So, since pure randomization is a bit hard due to other bias considerations, this study will use random sampling for the i...