JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In 2017, the Quebec government assigned the Association Québécoise de Prévention du Suicide (AQPS) to develop a Digital Suicide Prevention Strategy. The AQPS responded by creating a centralized website that provides information on suicide and mental health, identifies at-risk individuals online, and offers direct crisis intervention support via chat and text.

Objective:

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Suicide.ca, the platform of Quebec's digital suicide prevention strategy.

Methods:

Various data sources, such as Google Analytics, Firebase Console, and Customer Relation Management data, were analyzed to document platform usage. The analysis focused on platform traffic, the number of visits to psychoeducation pages, the comparison between downloads of the mobile app and user account creations, the number of people who engage in the self-assessment module, the drop-out rate during the intervention service's triage, and the quantity of crisis chat interventions delivered. To understand the profile of suicide.ca users, frequency analyses were conducted using data from the self-assessment module questionnaires, the intervention service's triage questionnaire, and counselors' intervention reports. The effectiveness of the platform's promotional activities on social media was assessed by examining traffic peaks and cross-referencing them with internal documentation from AQPS to determine if they coincided with promotional efforts. Google Analytics was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of AQPS' strategy for identifying at-risk Internet users. This involved analyzing the number and proportion of users who arrived at the site via suicide-related AdWords campaigns and those who initiated their site visit by accessing suicide risk factor fact sheets. The effectiveness of the intervention service was evaluated through an analysis of counselors' intervention reports and post-intervention survey results.

Results:

The platform received traffic from a diverse range of sources, with promotional efforts on social media directly contributing to increased traffic. However, there was limited traffic to the psychoeducation pages. The requirement of a user account posed a barrier to the utilization of the mobile app, and a triage question that involved personal information led to a significant number of dropouts during the intervention service triage. AdWords campaigns and fact sheets addressing suicide risk factors played a crucial role in driving traffic to the platform. Regarding the profile of suicide.ca users, findings revealed that the platform engaged individuals with diverse levels of suicidal risk. Notably, users of the chat service displayed a higher suicide risk in comparison to those utilizing the self-assessment module. Crisis chat counselors reported a positive impact on about half of the contacts, and overall, intervention service users expressed satisfaction with the support they received.

Conclusions:

A centralized digital platform can be utilized to implement a Digital Suicide Prevention Strategy, effectively reaching the general population, individuals with risk factors for suicide, and those facing suicidal issues.