Gun owners are much more receptive to suicide–prevention messages tailored to respect their rights as firearms enthusiasts than they are to messages that use language that aims to be culturally neutral, a new study suggests.

The research at Oregon State University–Cascades is significant because more than half of the roughly 40,000 people in the United States who take their own lives every year do so with a gun.

Past research shows that the vast majority of people with suicidal ideation will live meaningful, productive lives if they get past the rough patch that caused them to think about suicide.

But only 5 percent of people who attempt suicide via firearm survive; hence the need for messaging that’s effective in helping friends and family members hold onto guns while their loved ones are experiencing suicidal ideation.

The researchers conducted interviews in 2015 with 39 adult gun owners from rural communities in central Oregon. The goal was to understand the culture of gun ownership and learn about acceptable, non–threatening methods of improving firearm safety that respect the rights of gun owners while also helping suicidal patients stay safe.

The interviews led to a one–page suicide prevention message that encouraged restricting firearm access and also respected the cultural values and rights of gun owners; the opening, for example, read “People who love guns, love you. For many of us, firearms are an American way of life – a constitutional right and a necessity in order to protect ourselves and our families. And with this right to bear arms comes responsibility. Just as we must refuse to be a victim of violent crime, we must also use common sense.”

The culturally tailored message was then used as part of a nationwide survey of more than 800 gun owners to determine the likelihood of it causing owners of firearms to engage in multiple key gun safety behaviors for suicide prevention – such as asking a suicidal person to give away his or her guns temporarily to another trusted individual.

Survey participants were randomly assigned to receive one of four messages: a control message that read only, “Mental health and suicide prevention are important public health issues”; a standard, one–page message explaining that suicide is preventable, what the warning signs are, and how to take action; the culture–specific message that resulted from the interviews with gun owners; and a message that combined the tailored message with the standard message.

“Respondents who received our culturally specific message in conjunction with standard suicide prevention content reported the greatest likelihood of taking steps to restrict access to firearms for those deemed at risk of suicide,” said OSU–Cascades anthropologist Elizabeth Marino. “This tendency was enhanced for individuals who were more politically conservative, lived in more rural areas, and supported gun rights to a stronger degree.

In this case, inadvertent promotion could come via words or sentences that suggested an anti–firearm bias.

The study found the standard one–page public health message was no more effective in moving people’s attitudes than the one–sentence control message, which was effectively no message.

Joining Marino in the study were two OSU–Cascades colleagues, psychologist and corresponding author Christopher Wolsko and public health specialist Susan Keys, as well as Holly Wilcox of Johns Hopkins University. The La Pine Community Health Center and its medical director, Laura Pennavaria, also collaborated on the study.

Findings were published in the journal Archives of Suicide Research.