Colleges and universities are experiencing a growing level of distress on their campuses. Counseling centers have implemented preventive efforts, such as suicide prevention outreach, to avert crisis situations that are potentially life threatening and taxing to university resources. The present study aimed to explore two hypotheses: 1) do counseling centers who meet a higher proportion of students through outreach increase the level of help-seeking on their campus and 2) do counseling centers who meet a higher proportion of students through outreach reduce the level of suicidal distress in their students. This study used archival data about college student distress and newly gathered data about the outreach services counseling center staff provided. Twelve universities provided data about the number of outreach events and the number of people met that outreach events on their campus. The 12 universities contained archival data about level of suicidality and help-seeking behavior of 4,606 students nested in the 12 universities. Hierarchical linear modeling using the HLM software was conducted to test each hypothesis. The results for hypothesis 1 found a non-significant relationship between counseling center outreach and help-seeking behavior. The odds ratio was high (13.3) but the confidence interval was vast. This indicated an estimation problem with the analysis that may be related to lack of variance in help-seeking behavior. The results from testing hypothesis 2 found that there were not enough universities who participated in the study to have sufficient power. Due to the lower than expected response rate from universities, an interview was conducted with a staff member at a university who participated, but indicated that their center did not collect outreach data. Responses to the interview stated the importance of data collection for counseling centers while also highlighting several barriers to collecting such data. The findings from the hypothesis testing and interview suggest that the collection of outreach data would support the justification for the services counseling centers provide while also contributing to the research on the effectiveness of outreach. Conclusions from this study are related to the previously explored literature and directions for future research are discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational and Psychological Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 19, 2016. / Counseling center, Help-Seeking, Outreach, Suicide Prevention / Includes bibliographical references. / Martin Swanbrow Becker, Professor Directing Dissertation; Christopher Schatschneider, University Representative; James Sampson, Committee Member; Frances Prevatt, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_366035 |
| Contributors | Branagan, William Tyler (authoraut), Becker, Martin Swanbrow (professor directing dissertation), Schatschneider, Christopher (university representative), Sampson, James P. (committee member), Prevatt, Frances F., 1955- (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Education (degree granting college), Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems (degree granting department) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource (104 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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