The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 3 333 between these two groups in General Suicide Assessment, F(1, 223) = .316, p = .574; Assessment of Personal Characteristics, F(1, 223) = .156, p = .694; Suicide Intervention, F(1, 223) = .028, p = .867; or Assessment of Suicide History, F(1, 223) = 1.095, p = .133. Similarly, results of an ANOVA indicated that school counselors exposed to student suicide attempts had significantly more years of school counseling experience (M = 8.8, SD = 7.31) than counselors not exposed (M = 4.9, SD = 5.94): F(1, 224) = 8.055, p = .005. Controlling for years of school counseling experience, an ANCOVA indicated significant differences between the two groups in General Suicide Assessment, F(1, 223) = 6.014, p = .015; Assessment of Personal Characteristics, F(1, 223) = 7.140, p = .008; and Suicide Intervention, F(1, 223) = 6.671, p = .010; but not Assessment of Suicide History, F(1, 223) = .763, p = .383. Overall, effect sizes were small. Number of Exposures and Self-Efficacy A partial correlation between the number of suicide exposures and CSAES scores while controlling for years of school counseling experience was not statistically significant. There was no significant relationship between the number of death by suicide exposures and General Suicide Assessment, r(61) = .137, p = .285; Assessment of Suicide History, r(61) = .207, p = .104; Assessment of Personal Characteristics, r(61) = .170, p = .184; or Suicide Intervention, r(61) = .077, p = .551. Likewise, there was also no significant relationships between the number of suicide attempt exposures and General Suicide Assessment, r(121) = −.028, p = .762; Assessment of Suicide History, r(121) = .087, p = .336; Assessment of Personal Characteristics, r(121) = .131, p = .150; or Suicide Intervention, r(121) = .076, p = .401. We reported data regarding the frequency of suicide exposure in Table 2. Suicide Exposure and Workplace Anxiety In WAS scores, an ANCOVA revealed that there were no significant differences between school counselors exposed and not exposed to a student death by suicide when controlling for years of school counseling experience: F(1, 223) = .412, p = .522. Likewise, an ANCOVA revealed that there was no significant difference in WAS scores between school counselors exposed and not exposed to student suicide attempts when controlling for years of school counseling experience: F(1, 223) = .238, p = .626. To further illustrate the relationship between years of school counseling experience and workplace anxiety, a correlation coefficient indicated that these measures were significantly related, r(224) = −.260, p < .001. Discussion Among these school counselors, more than a quarter experienced a student’s death by suicide and over half experienced a student’s suicide attempt. These results are consistent with previous studies indicating that many school counselors will eventually be exposed to a student suicide during their careers (Allen et al., 2002; Gallo, 2018; Schmidt, 2016; Stickl Haugen et al., 2021). Given how common suicide experiences are, school counselors need to be trained to manage suicide-related crises. Training A surprising result in our study was the overall lack of suicide and crisis training reported. As seen in Table 1, nearly 2 in 5 school counselors (38%) reported that they received no suicide prevention training during their graduate education. Additionally, a quarter of the school counselors in this study reported that they received no postgraduate training in suicide prevention, and half reported between 1 and 10 hours. Thus, a sizeable portion of these school counselors were not adequately trained to incorporate suicide prevention programs into their school counseling practice. This finding echoes Gallo (2018), who reported that only 60% of school counselors felt prepared to identify students at risk for suicide.
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