The reactions of professionals after a patient suicide are still a subject of controversy in academic literature. This article reports on retrospective data about the aftermath experienced by mental health professionals working in institutional settings in Switzerland. Findings indicate that both self-rated emotional responses and traumatic impact were low for the majority of the 258 professionals surveyed. Variables that mediated the impact included the support received and the characteristics of the professional-patient relationship. No significant differences were found with regard to gender and profession.

Although patient suicide affected the professional life of psychiatrists and psychologists, it also encouraged them to review and adjust their working practices.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the majority of 15-19-year olds follow vocational education programmes within a dual-track system, spending most of their time in a company and going to school only 1 day each week. With their separate aims, content and sociological organisation, the company and the school can be considered as two distinct contexts within which apprentices have to acquire the various skills and competencies of their future occupation. In this paper, the development of apprentices' learning intentions and motivation to learn, subjective competence, perceived utility of what is learned and estimated learning place attractiveness (study 1) as well as their readiness to seek help in these different contexts over the year of training (study 2) is analysed using both longitudinal and cross-sectional data. The findings show significant differences in apprentices' motivation, their beliefs and their readiness to seek help in the different contexts throughout the training. Moderate (cross-different contexts, same time) as well as transcontextual (different contexts, different times) influences can also be seen. These results emphasise the importance of a careful delimitation of contexts when studying the Eur J Psychol Educ (2012) 27:213-225 impact of contextual factors on learners' motivation and behaviours; they also suggest that motivation within one of these contexts can indirectly affect the learner's motivation within another of these contexts. It is therefore likely that, by using these various dynamics appropriately, educators might temporarily sustain learners' motivation in an unappreciated context by having recourse to a better accepted one.

BackgroundPatient suicide is a professional hazard for mental health professionals and an event likely to trigger stress reactions among them.This study aimed to identify typical profiles of professionals after a patient suicide to address the severity of stress reactions and its discriminant variables.MethodsMental health professionals (N = 666) working in institutional settings or private practice in the French-speaking part of Switzerland filled out a self-administered questionnaire including the IES-R (Impact of Event Scale-Revised). Profiles were identified by cluster analysis.ResultsThe interplay of variables pertaining to the relationship to the patient, exposure to suicide, support and training contributed to explaining the severity of stress reactions after a patient suicide. Five profiles of professionals were identified. Low-impacted professionals (55.8 % of the sample) were characterised either by high support and anticipation (anticipators with support), emotional distance to the patient (distant professionals) or no contact with the patient at the time of death (no more contact with patient professionals). Emotional closeness to, and responsibility for the patient were typical of moderately-impacted professionals (36.6 %, concerned professionals), while highly-impacted professionals felt emotionally close to the patient and lacked support although more than half of them sought it (7.7 %, unsupported professionals).ConclusionsDifferences in the professionals’ profiles relate prominently to the interplay between risk and protective factors. Professionals who were appropriately supported, i.e., according to their risk profile, were able to cope with the event. Taking into account the profiles of professionals and the severity of stress reactions may enable the screening of those professionals most in need of support. Those most impacted sought out help more frequently. However, only a minority of them were offered sufficient support. Institutional or vocational bodies should take measures to ensure that professionals seeking help find it easily and promptly.The combination of training and support seems to be crucial for mitigating risk factors since the three low impacted subgroups had received the most training and support.