Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR)

QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer -- 3 simple steps that anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help. Each year thousands of Americans, like you, are saying "Yes" to saving the life of a friend, colleague, sibling, or neighbor. QPR can be learned in our Gatekeeper course in as little as one hour

The QPR training is now available online.  Complete QPR Online at your own pace using web-based technology.

Visit QPR Online Gatekeeper Training for more information or to register

In one hour, you can become a Gatekeeper!
According to the Surgeon General’s National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (2001), a gatekeeper is someone in a position to recognize a crisis and the warning signs that someone may be contemplating suicide. Gatekeepers include parents, friends, neighbors, teachers, ministers, doctors, nurses, office supervisors, squad leaders, foremen, police officers, advisors, caseworkers, firefighters, and many others who are strategically positioned to recognize and refer someone at risk of suicide.

As a QPR-trained Gatekeeper you will learn to:

• recognize the warning signs of suicide
• know how to offer hope
• know how to get help and save a life

WHO NEEDS TRAINING?

In 2002 the American Heart Association estimated that over the past 35 years some 250 thousand CPR instructors have trained several millions of US citizens in CPR. As a result, lives are saved that might otherwise have been lost.

As many people know the city of Seattle, Washington and surrounding King County has trained more citizens in CPR per capita than any other region in the country. As result, CPR-trained citizens are more likely to respond to perceived medical emergencies in Seattle than in any other city in the United States, which leads to more favorable survival rates.

According to Sanddal and his colleagues (Sanddal, 2003), “In the Seattle cardiac care system it is estimated that one in four persons has been exposed to CPR training. One can conjecture that the recognition of, and survival from, an acute suicide event would be more likely if one in four persons were trained as a suicide lay gatekeeper.”

At the end of 2009, an estimated one million American citizens have been trained in QPR by Certified QPR Instructors. Because of the nature of suicidal warning signs, and who is most likely to recognize and respond to them, we at the QPR Institute strongly concur with the goal of one in four persons trained a basic gatekeeper role for suicide prevention in the United States and in other countries. Because suicides happen in families – where emergency interventions are more likely to take place - we believe that AT LEAST ONE PERSON PER FAMILY UNIT should be trained in QPR.

Sources and References
American Association of Suicidology (2003) @ www.suicidology.org.

Goldstein, A.S. (1998), EMS and the law. Prentice-Hall Inc. 

Lundberg, G. (ed), Kerber, R. (chairman) (1992): Guidelines for CPR and ECC: recommendations of the 1992 national conference. JAMA, 268:2172-2183.

Newman, M. (1990). The chain of survival: converting a nation." Currents in Emergency Cardiac Care, 1,1:3

ProCPR.org CPR Philosophy of Rescue @ www.procpr.org

Safar P. & Bircher, N. (1998) Cardiopulmonary Cerebral Resuscitation. W.B. Saunders Company, Ltd., third edition.

Sanddal, N.D., Sanddal, T.L., Berman, A., & Silverman, M.M. (2003). A General Systems Approach to Suicide Prevention: Lessons from Cardiac Prevention and Control. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 33, 4, 341-352