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Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Telephone Counselling Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

A. R. Hornblow
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Otago University, Christchurch Clinical School, Christchurch, New Zealand
H. R. Sloane
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Otago University, Christchurch Clinical School, Christchurch, New Zealand

Extract

Despite the recent proliferation of telephone counselling services, there have been few rigorous studies of their effectiveness. Effectiveness has been assessed in terms of possible changes in suicide rate, caller compliance with counsellor recommendations, counsellor performance, and caller satisfaction, though none of these indices have been entirely satisfactory (Auerbach and Kilmann, 1977; France, 1975; Greer and Anderson, 1979). We have compared counsellors' and callers' perceptions by recontacting callers shortly after their initial call for help.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1980 

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References

Auerbach, S. M. & Kilmann, P. R. (1977) Crisis intervention: a review of outcome research. Psychological Bulletin, 84 (6), 11891217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
France, K. (1975) Evaluation of lay volunteer crisis telephone workers. American Journal of Community Psychology, 3 (3), 197220.Google Scholar
Greer, S. & Anderson, M. (1979) Samaritan contact among 325 parasuicide patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 263–8.Google Scholar
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