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Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully.

E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.

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I just tried searching Google Scholar, and it turned up studies showing effectiveness:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1521/suli.33.4.400.252... - "Independent raters measured callers' suicidality and mental state at the beginning and end of 100 taped counselling sessions. Changes in suicidality and mental state were measured using a reliable rating scale developed for the study. Significant decreases in suicidality and significant improvement in mental state were found to occur during the course of counselling sessions, suggesting positive immediate impact."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1521/suli.2007.37.3.33... - "Significant decreases in suicidality were found during the course of the telephone session, with continuing decreases in hopelessness and psychological pain in the following weeks."

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1022269314076... - "Outcome measures showed observer evaluations of decreased depressive mood from the beginning to the end in 14% of calls, decreased suicidal urgency ratings from the beginning to the end in 27% of calls, and reaching a contract in 68% of calls, of which 54% of contracts were upheld according to follow-up data."

In case people don't know this: these hotlines also help people who are concerned about friends and family members, and there are email-based options like http://www.samaritans.org/.

I volunteer as a crisis and suicide counselor for Didi Hirsch (a national suicide line branch) in Los Angeles. Thanks for posting these studies and validating the important work.

I actually worked for the national hotline as a volunteer. I worked at a local crisis hotline in the Maryland area, and each one of these places ties into the national hotline, as it does (and please feel free to troll me) a round-robin process and tries to find the closest center given the area code of the caller. I personally handled less than a dozen of these calls. I cannot go into details because we all sign NDA's (surprise, surprise), but I will tell you in all my time we never had someone commit suicide. Also, even volunteer people like myself are trained in suicidology assessment, and getting a stage 3 person warrants you calling law enforcement and/or emergency services given your discretion. In my over a year there, I saw that happen only once when they thought it would be close. I personally talked down many people, and it was my personal opinion those who called the hotline were rarely those were at a level so bad they were going to do it on the phone.

Just my two cents.

Just to clarify, does this mean you don't think it's a worthwhile service? It kind of sounds like you're implying that people who phone aren't really serious, but does it follow then that people should call, or that they shouldn't exist, or what?

I'm very grateful that you volunteered with them, but I'm really curious what conclusion we're supposed to draw from your experience. At worst it sounds slightly dismissive of the line and the people who call.

I don't have any numbers, but I know at least 3 people who have used them in the past. When I was younger, I used an anonymous online suicide hotline site (though I don't recall which), which at least made me stop and think, which is often enough.

I called one once, it's pretty effective, even though his advice didn't work or was dumb, I think just having somebody to listen to you is good enough, during that time nobody, meaning none of my friends, was answering my calls.

A lot of times one just needs someone to just LISTEN and be sympathetic (that is, supportive without being hypersensitive)...

It may be what is called 'empathy'.

hm. wrong link... anyway, a re-run:

A friend of mine worked for one for a while. She says it is a mixed bag, you win a lot, you lose some too. It's the toughest thing anybody could pick to do as a job. She's a pretty successful businesswoman and decided to take a years break and looked for something useful to do, ended up manning one of the phones.

I don't have the numbers at hand, but I've heard of a study saying that suicide very often is a very impulsive action. Saying that in most cases there's less than an hour between deciding to commit suicide and the action itself (numbers might be off here).

Looks like I got it from a Freakonomics podcast [1]: "One academic study looked at attempted suicides in Houston among 15 to 34 year olds. It found that in 70 percent of the cases, the time between deciding to commit suicide and taking action was under an hour. Seventy-percent of the cases. For about one-quarter of the people involved, the time gap was five minutes or less."

Of course, from this it doesn't follow that a hotline it necessarily effective. Luckily britta already posted links to some studies.

[1] http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/21/the-suicide-paradox-f...

In the UK a certain over-the-counter drug that can be used to commit suicide is only sold in quantities insufficient for suicide.

There is nothing to stop a person from going to several shops, but the measure is effective because that takes longer.

Yes there is solid research that it helps - see @britta's comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047160

Anecdotally I worked as a part-time volunteer on a general counselling service for a couple of years in my twenties - which included some suicide calls. A goodly chunk of the time it felt like you made a difference. We occasionally got "thank you" calls weeks/months later to say that we'd stopped folk doing things that they would now regret (sometimes from folk you thought you hadn't helped...)

Probably more effective earlier. Someone living while being horribly depressed all the time isn't exactly a victory, either. I assume suicide hotlines can refer depressed and "suicidal ideation" people, who aren't yet actually killing themselves, to help as well.

I would imagine that in reality the percentage of callers that actually intend to commit suicide is probably pretty low, regardless of 'studies'. How are you going to really study something like that objectively? I can't imagine that anyone would ever hear about someone who used one successfully. Only the actual suicides are going to make the news like this, which is sad. However, I would think it would be worth it even if a hotline is only able to dissuade even 1/10000 callers intent on committing suicide.

Even if the same amount of money could save five lives elsewhere? As a person who continually deals with depression, I'm glad the hotlines exist and absolutely think they are worth it; but I cringe every time I hear, "if it only saves one life" regardless of the cost (which is usually billions of dollars and a few civil rights when the government is involved).

Possibly inconsequential but you have one right here. I've called a suicide hotline more times than I can remember. They don't tell you something resulting in some great epiphany. What they do is talk to you. Simply talk to you, hear what you have to say, keep you on the line and make you feel heard. That's all I needed to calm down. Maybe that's what most people need. No suicide line has ever sent me a form asking if they've done a good job. I imagine they are constantly swamped.

Here we call them something like a 'crisis line'. They aren't just for people who are considering suicide; I have had friends with extreme anxiety who phoned to talk through their fears. This helped them work through crippling anxiety attacks and allowed them to go to class, work, etc. afterwards.

The people on these lines are very well trained at active listening, and that can be useful in a lot of mental health situations where suicide may never have been the end result.

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