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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1397640

Mind4Health: Decolonizing Gatekeeper Trainings using a Culturally Relevant Text Message Intervention

Provisionally accepted
Colbie Caughlan Colbie Caughlan 1*Amanda Gaston Amanda Gaston 1*Jane Manthei Jane Manthei 1Lisa DiBianco Lisa DiBianco 1*Aurora Martinez Aurora Martinez 1Allyson Kelley Allyson Kelley 2Stephanie Craig Rushing Stephanie Craig Rushing 1
  • 1 Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, Portland, Oregon, United States
  • 2 Allyson Kelley & Associates PLLC, Sisters, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: When a person dies by suicide, it takes a reverberating emotional, physical, and economic toll on families and communities. The widespread use of social media among youth and adolescents, disclosures of emotional distress, suicidal ideation, intent to self-harm, and other mental health crises posted on these platforms have increased. One solution to address the need for responsive suicide prevention and mental health services is to implement a culturally-tailored gatekeeper modeltraining. The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) developed Mind4Health, an online gatekeeper training (90 minutes) and text message intervention for caring adults of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth. Methods: The Mind4Health intervention was a multi-phase, single-arm, pre-and post-test study of users enrolled in the gatekeeper intervention that is available via text message (SMS) and or via a 90-minute online, self-paced training. We produced four datasets in this study:, Mobile Commons, pre-survey data, post-survey data, and Healthy Native Youth website's Google Analytics. The analysis included data cleaning, basic frequency counts, percentages, and descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic content analysis methods and hand-coding techniques with two independent coders. Results: From 2022 to 2024, 280 people enrolled in the Mind4Health SMS training, and 250 completed the 8-week intervention. Many messages in the sequence were multi-part text messages and over 21,500 messages were sent out during the timeframe. Of the 280 subscribers, 52 participated in the pre-survey. Pre-survey data show that 94% of participants were female, and nearly one-fourth lived in Washington state, 9692% of participants in the pre-survey were very to moderately comfortable talking with youth about mental health (n = 52= 4848). Most participants interact with youth in grades K-12. Post-survey data demonstrate changes in knowledge, beliefs, comfort talking about mental health, and self-efficacy among participants. Mind4Health improved participant’s skills to have mental health conversations with youth and refer youth to resources in their community.

    Keywords: American Indian, suicide prevention, gatekeeper training, Health Education, Text message intervention

    Received: 08 Mar 2024; Accepted: 12 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Caughlan, Gaston, Manthei, DiBianco, Martinez, Kelley and Craig Rushing. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Colbie Caughlan, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, Portland, Oregon, United States
    Amanda Gaston, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, Portland, Oregon, United States
    Lisa DiBianco, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, Portland, Oregon, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.