Patient gender and familiarity influence responses to suicide signs: an experimental vignette study of Australian pharmacists

Integrating social role theory and cognitive affective processing systems theory, this research examines why and when pharmacists respond to patients exhibiting suicide-related thoughts and behaviors with recommended (e.g., listen non-judgementally) and unrecommended (e.g., tell the patient suicide is wrong) mental health support. Utilizing a 2 (patient gender: male/female) by 2 (pharmacists’ familiarity with patient: higher/lower) between-subjects factorial experimental design, participants read a vignette in which the hypothetical patient was displaying suicide-related thoughts and behaviors. Participants, 291 pharmacists working in Australia, reported their appraisal of how serious the issue was (cognitive reaction), their empathy and personal distress (affective reactions), and their intention to engage in both recommended and unrecommended mental health support behaviors. Results suggest female patients elicit empathy from pharmacists who respond with both recommended and unrecommended support behaviors, regardless of the level of familiarity. Conversely, more familiar male patients, relative to less familiar, were perceived as being more serious with pharmacists responding using more recommended and less unrecommended mental health support behaviors. Our research provides a rich theoretical foundation on which to study patient-based biases in primary healthcare and unpacks the underlying mechanisms explaining differential responses to male and female patients at risk of suicide.