UBCO researchers examine user responses to text-based crisis lines – Kelowna News
Photo: Contributed
New investigation from UBC Okanagan suggests crisis text traces are useful and successful for college students struggling with mental health issues.
Dr. Susan Holtzman, who teaches psychology in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Social Sciences, claims psychological health crisis expert services have expanded lately over and above phone hotlines to contain conversation strategies these kinds of as are living chat and texting.
Dr. Holtzman says there is escalating strain in Canada to generate just one a few-digit suicide crisis hotline which would be comparable to the one released recently in the United States.
“Every yr, millions of people all more than the earth arrive at out to crisis textual content traces,” Dr. Holtzman suggests.
“However, due to the fact crisis text lines are anonymous, extremely small is regarded about the person practical experience. And inspite of increasing psychological wellbeing problems worldwide and a substantial uptake of disaster textual content line providers, they remain understudied.”
Dr. Holtzman’s crew, led by medical psychology doctoral pupil Alanna Coady, turned to Twitter posts to study how disaster textual content lines end users responded to their activities with the disaster traces.
Analyzing 776 tweets the study workforce examined six key themes which includes approval, valuable or unhelpful counselling, support supply difficulties, accessibility and regardless of whether the provider fits multiple mental health desires.
Total, results established text-centered crisis assistance operates, as numerous end users described good activities of effective counselling which includes beneficial coping capabilities, de-escalation and reduction of hurt.
“The purpose of this job was to collect first-hand accounts of people who use disaster textual content strains to improved understand the rewards and constraints of these companies,” Coady claimed.
“Many people most popular the discreetness of texting in excess of calling a disaster line, and the majority of tweets indicated that people discovered the provider beneficial.”
However, she notes there are disadvantages to texting crisis traces, including very long wait times. Consumers also pointed out that some responses from counsellors were described as cliché, overly scripted or invalidating. This could be rather related to the texting platform, she explains, which can be far more inclined to misunderstandings.
“While some people today might face adverse reviews of disaster text lines on social media, our results propose that beneficial experiences are significantly much more frequent and end users report a huge vary of positive aspects, including emotions of validation and concrete coping tactics,” Coady adds.
“Overall, crisis text strains look to be a promising process of offering disaster aid.”
