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QPR Gatekeeper Training

Children's Mental Health: Other
  Literature review updated November 2020.
This program was archived June 2026.

The QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer) Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention is a training designed to help individuals to recognize potential suicidal ideation; to effectively counsel individuals believed to be at risk of suicide to seek help; and to refer those individuals to appropriate professional care. The brief training can be completed in approximately one hour either online or in person.

Results are based on a single randomized study of schools in the European Union. In the treatment schools, teachers and other school personnel were trained in QPR. In the control schools, posters used in the Youth Aware of Mental Health program (YAM) were posted in classrooms, but faculty and staff were not trained in QPR or YAM. The analysis included only students who had never attempted suicide and who had not reported severe suicidal ideation in the two weeks before baseline.
 
ALL
META-ANALYSIS
CITATIONS

Meta-analysis is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The outcomes measured are the program impacts measured in the research literature (for example, impacts on crime or educational attainment). Treatment N represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An effect size (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases. See Estimating Program Effects Using Effect Sizes for additional information on how we estimate effect sizes.

The effect size may be adjusted from the unadjusted effect size estimated in the meta-analysis. Historically, WSIPP adjusted effect sizes to some programs based on the methodological characteristics of the study. For programs reviewed in 2024 or later, we do not make additional adjustments, and we use the unadjusted effect size whenever we run a benefit-cost analysis.

Research shows the magnitude of effects may change over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments, which we apply between the first time ES is estimated and the second time ES is estimated. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.

Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured No. of effect sizes Treatment N Effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
ES SE Age ES p-value
Suicide attempts
An attempt to die by suicide resulting in survival.
 0 1 1978 -0.050 0.041 15 -0.050 0.225
Suicidal ideation
Thinking about and/or planning death by suicide.
 0 1 1977 -0.031 0.167 15 -0.031 0.852

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Wasserman, D., Hoven, C.W., Wasserman, C., Wall, M., Eisenberg, R., Hadlaczky, G., . . . Carli, V. (2015). School-based suicide prevention programmes: the SEYLE cluster-randomised, controlled trial. The Lancet, 385, 1536-1544.