Muslim populations have distinct suicide considerations. Our recent findings published in JAMA revealed that American Muslims are twice as likely to report lifetime suicide attempts compared to other faith groups in the US. We also found that Arab women die by suicide at higher rates than males, although typically in the US, men die at higher rates. Muslim suicide prevention efforts must account for the belief that mental health problems are a test from God. Muslim community members tend to seek support from faith leaders, but the leaders aren't qualified to address mental health issues. The Stanford Muslim Mental Health and Islamic Psychology (SMMHIP) Lab developed a Muslim suicide response resource guide. Then, based off the guide developed the first scientifically and religiously congruent training program custom-tailored to Muslim communities. Muslim faith and community leaders receive 8 hours of suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention best practices training. The lab has close ties to many national Muslim organizations making it possible to scale this training nationally and even internationally.
Hypothesis:
Since Muslim leaders are non-experts and their buy-in is crucial for this training, sponsoring the evaluation of our custom-tailored training materials will allow us to examine their pedagogical integrity. Program success may be indicated by more mental health referrals.
Aims, Sample, Measures, Procedure:
Aim 1: Leverage suicidologists and religion experts to evaluate our training materials for accuracy and pedagogical efficacy. We will recruit experts (N=3-4) to evaluate the training manual and modules for impact, safety, acceptability, appropriateness, feasibility, and scalability using a mixed methods approach. The training manual will be modified accordingly.
Aim 2: Pilot test suicide response program materials. Muslim faith and community leaders (N=250) will attend prototype training sessions based on materials created by SMMHIP Lab. Readability for a non-expert audience, community relevance, tangible steps, evidence-based and Islamically-congruent recommendations will be evaluated at pre-, post- and 6 months following the training. Our mixed-method approach will utilize the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice model to assess cognitive and behavioral change. The primary outcome of this aim is mental health service referral rates.
Aim 3: Recruit Muslim faith and community leaders as well as community members with lived experience (N= 6-8 in each group) for focus groups to evaluate whether training material objectives are met for a real-world context. Thematic analysis will be used and training materials will be modified accordingly.
Potential Impact:
Evaluation of our materials will ensure robust suicide response resources that incorporate Muslim cultural and spiritual nuances and teach 250 US Imams suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. Given the high rates of suicide attempts among American Muslims, the evaluation and dissemination of such resources nationally will equip Muslim faith and community leaders with the skills and knowledge to address suicide in their communities.
Next Steps:
We seek to establish a research-to-training paradigm that other marginalized communities can use to prevent suicide by using the Muslim example as a case study. Success in the Muslim community will demonstrate how to partner with minority communities to establish culturally congruent suicide response trainings.
