QPR: How dental professionals can help prevent suicide attempts

Welcome, 2025! A new year brings both revelations and opportunities; perhaps this is the year you learn a new skill or hobby, or maybe you want to play a more active role in your community. Well, I would encourage dental professionals of all backgrounds to consider becoming trained in a life-saving skill that can prevent someone from committing suicide: QPR.

Invented in 1995, QPR stands for question, persuade, and refer.¹ It is an emergency mental health intervention that aims to save lives by following the step-by-step instructions.^1-3 QPR tends to be successful if a gatekeeper (someone trained to recognize the signs of a suicidal mental health crisis) can intervene quickly after noticing a person having a mental health breakdown. Results show that the sooner suicidal warning signs are identified—and the faster QPR is performed—the better the outcome will be.^1-3

Any community member can become a gatekeeper, but they are typically those who work alongside the public, such as teachers, firefighters, police officers, and health-care workers. A gatekeeper can not only identify that someone is struggling with their mental health but is also trained in how to discuss the person's suicide ideations and how to get that person professional help.^1-3

Question

Questioning is the first step after a gatekeeper notices someone having a mental health crisis. The gatekeeper is supposed to directly ask the person if they are contemplating suicide. Although being blunt may sound uncomfortable, it is vital for the QPR attempt to be successful. When the gatekeeper shows they are genuinely listening, they will likely pick up on indirect cries for help.^1-3

Persuade

Persuading the individual who is currently in a mental health crisis may take some finesse. At this point, the gatekeeper has already learned that the person is contemplating suicide and must now persuade them to get professional help from a medical professional. The gatekeeper may suggest seeking mental health therapy, a medical evaluation, or a counselor who can provide support. During this part of QPR, they need to be reassuring, firm, and suggestive—all while remaining calm and without abandoning the person having the crisis.

This step may be tough for both the victim and the gatekeeper.^1-3

Refer

Finally, a gatekeeper must refer a mental health patient to a professional resource for more specific support. This referral could be the National Mental Health hotline (*988), speaking to a 911 operator, contacting the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI), contacting a police officer trained in QPR, or just getting the person to an emergency care facility. Again, the gatekeeper should not leave the person considering suicide and needs to remain calm when referring them to a professional resource.^1-5

Whether they're QPR trained or not, anyone has the potential to stop someone experiencing a mental health crisis from performing self-harm or committing suicide. Suicidal thoughts can affect everyone-regardless of gender, age, or ethnicity—in any community across the globe.⁴

In the US, almost 50,000 people died from suicide in 2022, making it one of the top causes of death in this country.4 This means one person dies from committing suicide every 11 minutes.4. Even children and adolescents can struggle with their mental health, and more often than not, victims of suicide have communicated their strife to others and considered suicide on more than one occasion.⁶ The sooner those who are mentally ill receive professional resource referral, the greater their odds of surviving.^1-3,6 Perhaps, if more community members were trained in QPR, the number of annual suicide deaths in our country would decrease.

Being proactive

If dental professionals are interested in becoming gatekeepers or learning how to teach others about QPR, there are many ways to do so. The first way to learn more is to contact the QPR Institute. They offer online classes and training, which takes about two hours and costs around $50.00. If you want to become a QPR instructor, you must take several hours of coursework and hold a three-year teaching certificate.

Unfortunately, training for QPR is not currently recognized as a course for continuing education for any dental license, but perhaps in the future continuing education courses will be designed with QPR in mind.

While a dental professional may decide that their own personal limitations prevent them from becoming trained in QPR, it is important for health-care workers to understand they can still help someone experiencing a mental health crisis. Sometimes, active listening alone may stop a victim from choosing self-harm. Letting someone struggling with mental health know they have a lifeline is a wonderful thing. Anyone, including dental professionals, can do this to make 2025 a great year.

The author would like to disclose that she has yet to be trained in QPR but hopes to be soon! She would also like to remind readers that reading this article is not a substitute for QPR training.

References

1. What is QPR? QPR Institute. https://qprinstitute.com/about-qpr

2. QPR gatekeeper suicide prevention training. Mental Health America of Central Carolinas. 2024. https://mhaofcc.org/program/qpr-gatekeeper-suicide-prevention-training

3. QPR. National Precast Concrete Association. https://precast.org/wp-content/uploads/022924_Safety_QPR-Suicide-Prevention.pdf

4. Suicide data and statistics. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. October 29, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html

5. Suicide prevention month. National Association of Mental Illness. 2024. https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Suicide-Prevention-Month/

6. Susman D. How using QPR can prevent suicides. Psychology Today. February 19, 2018. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-recovery-coach/201802/how-using-qpr-can-prevent-suicides?msockid=3c2707875e3d646d347d15ef5fb965d2