A Randomized Trial for Suicidal Patients

"Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality" (CAMS) in Comparison to "Treatment as Usual" (TAU) for Suicidal Patients: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Although suicide risk is highly prevalent among the patient population in mental health care, remarkably little research exists on effective treatments. Among a small set of novel approaches, CAMS is particularly promising. The investigators compare CAMS to TAU in a randomized controlled trial at four departments in Vestre Viken Hospital Trust, hypothesizing CAMS to be the superior approach. Primary outcome measures are suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, with secondary outcome measures including general symptoms of mental health problems. Changes in the outcome measures are compared between the two groups from baseline to 6 and 12 months after patients are included in the study. The study has the potential to impact the science of treating suicidal individuals and it could benefit the general public by establishing CAMS as an effective clinical approach for rapidly reducing suicide risk.

Interview scale with 19 items that measures a patient's suicidal ideation at its worst point in the past 2 weeks.

A 45-item questionnaire designed to measure key areas of mental health functioning (symptoms, interpersonal problems and social role functioning)

Data entered in the NPR on self harm, suicide attempts, new hospital admissions to health treatments, discharge diagnosis, intoxication, and death by any causes.

An interview covering past self-inflicted injuries and categorizing them into suicide attempts and non-suicidal acts. The tool also creates counts of self-inflicted injuries by method, medical risk severity and lethality

Inclusion Criteria: Significant suicide ideation on Beck's Scale for Suicide Ideation (score 13 and above). Informed consent to participate. Exclusion Criteria: Active psychosis, cognitive or physical impairment or other problems that preclude the ability to understand the study procedures and provide informed consent, non-Norwegian speaking subjects

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Storebo OJ, Stoffers-Winterling JM, Vollm BA, Kongerslev MT, Mattivi JT, Jorgensen MS, Faltinsen E, Todorovac A, Sales CP, Callesen HE, Lieb K, Simonsen E. Psychological therapies for people with borderline personality disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020 May 4;5(5):CD012955. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD012955.pub2.

Ryberg W, Fosse R, Zahl PH, Brorson I, Moller P, Landro NI, Jobes D. Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) compared to treatment as usual (TAU) for suicidal patients: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2016 Oct 3;17(1):481. doi: 10.1186/s13063-016-1602-z.