The impact of gender on telephone crisis workers’ identification of, and response to, male callers’ potential suicidal presentation

Men are overrepresented in suicidal fatalities in Australia. Telephone crisis helplines are an important first point of contact for help-giving by providing an immediate and accessible service through which suicidal men can be identified and supported to seek ongoing mental-health support. However, the time- and information-limited crisis helpline context poses difficulties for the identification of suicidal men by Telephone Crisis Workers (TCWs), particularly if the caller does not directly express suicidal intent. Consequently, this thesis aims to examine the extent to which a particular characteristic , i.e. the caller’s perceived gender, impacts the way in which TCWs interpret and respond to callers expressing signs of suicide. This thesis contains eight chapters including five peer-reviewed articles.