Core Skills for Digital Crisis Intervention: Lessons from a University-Based Online Sexual Assault Hotline

Abstract Sexual assault among university students is prevalent and has detrimental effects. Digital modes of communication are preferred by young adults, but there is limited data on digital crisis intervention. The purpose of this program evaluation is to utilize web-based crisis chat transcripts from a university service to ascertain the processes that hotline responders use. We reviewed 224 de-identified transcripts of chats that took place between November 2018 – June 2020. The coding framework included structural codes (chat characteristics), descriptive codes (conversation topics), and process codes (essential components of digital crisis intervention). Our findings have implications for the training of text- and web-based hotline responders.