Angela's Poster

Acceptability, Appropriateness, and Feasibility of a Training Module Targeting Clinicians’ Negative Emotional Responses to Suicidal Patients: A Pilot

by You-Syuan Lin¹˒²˒³, Kate Van Houten¹˒²˒³, Samuel Welsh¹˒²˒³, Hanjiang Xu¹˒²˒³, & Sarah Bloch-Elkouby¹˒²

¹ Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
² Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University
³ Teachers College, Columbia University

Background

Clinicians’ negative emotional responses may nonverbally convey discomfort, frustration, judgment, or withdrawal, especially when working with high-risk patients.

Suicidal patients may be especially sensitive to perceived rejection or invalidation. Therefore, recognizing and managing these responses is critical to improving empathic communication and therapeutic alliance.

Our lab developed a training module providing brief psychoeducation on clinicians’ negative emotional responses to suicidal patients and evidence-based skills for managing them during clinical interactions.

Research Questions

1. Do participants find the Emotional Response Training Module appropriate, feasible, and acceptable to incorporate in their training working with high-risk suicidal patients?
2. Do participants find the Emotional Response Training Module content and structure satisfying, or is there further feedback on the delivery of the content?

Methods

Sample: N = 10 graduate students, ages 21–38 (M = 26.30, SD = 4.97). Eight participants had direct clinical interaction experience; four identified as White, one as Black, five as Asian, and six were female.

Procedure: After providing consent, participants completed a demographic survey, the training module, and post-module implementation measures via Qualtrics.

Measures: Acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility were assessed using the Acceptability of Intervention Measure, Intervention Appropriateness Measure, and Feasibility of Intervention Measure (AIM/IAM/FIM; Weiner et al., 2017).

Participants were also encouraged to provide additional suggestions and thoughts about the module in a text box to help improve the module content or delivery method.

Results

Textbox feedback was positive in supporting the module’s perceived relevance, particularly its focus on an understudied aspect of clinicians’ experiences when working with suicidal patients.

Participants highlighted the usefulness of the training video and its focus on clinician emotional regulation.

Suggestions for improvement included:

• Addressing clinician stress and pressure during high-risk encounters.
• Providing greater context to normalize negative emotional responses.
• Incorporating additional opportunities for supervision or follow-up.
• Allowing more time to discuss the measures presented in the training video.

Discussion

These findings provide support for the module as a potentially useful training resource and identify specific areas for refinement prior to further evaluation.

Participant feedback supported the relevance of addressing clinicians’ negative emotional responses, an understudied aspect of working with suicidal patients.

Participants also emphasized the importance of providing context for these responses and offering additional support for clinicians following challenging encounters.

Limitations

The sample was very small and consisted of psychology graduate students, limiting generalizability to practicing clinicians and other professionals.

Results were based on self-reported perceptions immediately following the module and therefore do not establish whether training changes clinicians’ emotional responses or clinical behavior.

Future Directions

Discuss with the broader team whether clinician stress and pressure during high-risk encounters, including strategies for managing these responses in the moment, should be included.

Consider adding introductory context to normalize and destigmatize negative emotional responses and clarify how these responses may arise during suicide-focused clinical encounters.

Consider incorporating supervisor follow-up or reflective supervision to support clinicians’ emotional processing after challenging encounters.

References

Weiner, B. J., Lewis, C. C., Stanick, C., Powell, B. J., Dorsey, C. N., Clary, A. S., Boynton, M. H., & Halko, H. (2017). Psychometric assessment of three newly developed implementation outcome measures. Implementation Science, 12(1), 108. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-017-0635-3