School of Computing, Ulster University, Belfast, United Kingdom.
School of Psychology, Ulster University, Coleraine, United Kingdom.
JMIR Ment Health. 2024 Sep 19;11:e58162. doi: 10.2196/58162.
National suicide prevention strategies are general population-based approaches to prevent suicide by promoting help-seeking behaviors and implementing interventions. Crisis helplines are one of the suicide prevention resources available for public use, where individuals experiencing a crisis can talk to a trained volunteer. Samaritans UK operates on a national scale, with a number of branches located within each of the United Kingdom's 4 countries or regions.
The aim of this study was to identify any differences in call duration across the helpline service in order to determine whether service varied interregionally and intraregionally and to determine the impact of calls answered in the same region as the caller, compared with calls answered in a different region on the duration of calls made from landlines to Samaritans UK.
Calls may be routed by Samaritans, wherein the telephony system sends the call to the next available volunteer, irrespective of location; therefore, individuals may be routed to a branch within the same region as the caller's current region (intraregional calls) or routed to a branch that is in a different region from that of the caller's current region (interregional calls). The origin of calls by region was identified using the landline prefix of the anonymized caller identifier, along with the region of the destination branch (as branch details are recorded in the call details record). First, a Levene's test of homogeneity of variance was carried out for each condition, that is, England calls and Scotland calls. Thereafter, for each condition, a one-way ANOVA or one-way analysis of means was carried out to evaluate any significant differences in call duration.
ANOVA results showed that there are significant differences in call durations between intraregional calls and interregional calls (P<.001). Across all conditions within this study, callers stayed on the phone for a shorter period of time when routed to a branch that is within the same region as the call origin than if they were put through to a branch within a different region than the call origin.
Statistical analyses showed that there were significant differences between interregional and intraregional calls. On average, callers to crisis helplines stayed on the phone for a shorter period of time if they were routed to a branch within the same region in which the call originated than if they were routed to a branch in a different region of origin. The findings from this study have practical applications, which may allow crisis helplines to manage their resources more effectively and improve caller satisfaction with the service.
国家自杀预防策略是一种针对普通人群的方法，旨在通过促进寻求帮助的行为和实施干预措施来预防自杀。危机热线是供公众使用的预防自杀资源之一，有危机的个人可以与受过培训的志愿者交谈。撒玛利亚会在英国全国范围内运作，在联合王国的 4 个国家或地区的每个地区都设有多个分支机构。
本研究的目的是确定热线服务在通话时间方面的任何差异，以确定服务是否在区域间和区域内有所不同，并确定与从来电者所在地区接听的电话相比，从来电者所在地区接听的电话对从英国撒玛利亚会打往固定电话的通话时间的影响。
撒玛利亚人可能会对电话进行路由，其中电话系统会将电话发送给下一个可用的志愿者，而不管位置如何；因此，个人可能会被路由到与来电者当前地区相同的地区的分支机构（区域内电话），或者被路由到与来电者当前地区不同的地区的分支机构（区域间电话）。通过匿名来电者标识符的固定电话前缀以及目的地分支机构的地区（因为分支机构详细信息记录在呼叫详细信息记录中）来确定呼叫的来源地区。首先，对每个条件（即英格兰呼叫和苏格兰呼叫）进行 Levene 方差同质性检验。此后，对于每个条件，进行单向方差分析或单向均值分析，以评估通话持续时间是否存在显著差异。
方差分析结果表明，区域内呼叫和区域间呼叫之间的通话持续时间存在显著差异（P<.001）。在本研究的所有条件下，如果将呼叫者路由到与呼叫起源相同的区域内的分支机构，他们在电话上的停留时间会更短，而如果将他们转接至呼叫起源所在的不同区域的分支机构，则停留时间会更短。
统计分析表明，区域间和区域内呼叫之间存在显著差异。平均而言，如果将呼叫者路由到与呼叫起源相同的区域内的分支机构，而不是路由到呼叫起源所在的不同区域的分支机构，他们在电话上的停留时间会更短。这项研究的结果具有实际应用意义，这可能使危机热线能够更有效地管理其资源，并提高呼叫者对服务的满意度。
