The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 3 329 study, high school counselors felt a lack of personal support from their fellow staff members and noted the importance of self-care in the aftermath of a student death by suicide. Additionally, those who lost students to suicide thought that a lack of practice standards made it difficult to navigate these difficult situations (Christianson & Everall, 2008). In another qualitative study, elementary school counselors who worked with suicidal students recognized their important work in preventing suicide but also reported a lack of suicide prevention training opportunities tailored toward working with young children (Gallo et al., 2021). In a quantitative study, most school counselors thought that a student’s death by suicide left both personal and professional impacts on their lives. These school counselors most often reported low mood, a sense of guilt or responsibility, and preoccupation with the incident as personal impacts. They also identified heightened awareness of suicide risk, more professional caution around suicide, and seeking additional training as professional impacts. The researchers suggested that future studies should determine if the number of student deaths by suicide influences the impact of the suicide exposure (Stickl Haugen et al., 2021). However, this study did not examine anxiety, an important personal impact, nor did it examine self-efficacy in dealing with suicide attempts, a more likely occurrence than suicide deaths. Research Questions The following research questions guided this study: • What is the prevalence of graduate and postgraduate training in suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and suicide postvention among current school counselors? • Are there differences in suicide assessment self-efficacy between school counselors exposed and not exposed to student deaths by suicide and suicide attempts, controlling for years of school counseling experience as a covariate? • Does the number of suicide exposures relate to school counselors’ level of suicide assessment self-efficacy when controlling for years of school counseling experience as a covariate? • Are there differences in workplace anxiety between school counselors exposed and not exposed to student deaths by suicide and suicide attempts, controlling for years of school counseling experience as a covariate? Method Procedure We obtained approval from our university’s Human Subjects Protection Review Committee prior to conducting this study. Using a random number generator, we randomly selected 5,000 members from the ASCA member directory to receive a link to the survey. When potential participants clicked the link, they viewed and agreed to an informed consent statement before they were permitted to view the survey. This statement also informed participants that they could stop participation or withdraw their participation at any time. Upon agreement to the informed consent statement, participants were directed to the survey. This online survey was administered via Qualtrics, which allowed them to respond anonymously. Participants From the 5,000 potential participants, 422 began the survey. From these participants, 101 opened the survey and did not answer any questions, 5 did not agree to the informed consent statement, 29 reported that they were not current school counselors, and 60 did not complete the survey. Thus, 226 of
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