Peer Mentorship to Reduce Suicide Attempts Among High-Risk Adults
Suicidal IdeationAmid consistently worsening suicide rates, in 2012 the U.S.Surgeon General's National Strategy for Suicide Prevention proposed to "change the narrative" about suicide prevention to include a focus on promoting hope and belongingness. Despite hopelessness and thwarted belongingness being among the most replicated risk factors for suicide, many widely implemented suicide prevention efforts instead emphasize the identification of acute suicide risk and referral to mental health treatment services. However, there are very few health service interventions known to reduce suicides among those identified as high risk. Those interventions shown to be effective have not achieved the wide scale implementation necessary to alter the trend of increasing suicide deaths. New interventions are needed, and one promising, scalable intervention with a novel approach to addressing the risk factors advocated by the Surgeon General is peer mentorship. A peer mentorship intervention, PREVAIL, has been piloted in a two-site randomized controlled trial (N=70) and is acceptable and feasible with enrollment of nearly half of eligible high-risk patients, mean completion of over 6 mentorship sessions, and 85% of sessions meeting fidelity standards for addressing the intended targets of hope and belongingness. The aims of this hybrid effectiveness-implementation study are: Specific Aim 1: Determine the effectiveness of the PREVAIL peer mentorship intervention for reducing suicide attempts and suicidal ideation among recently hospitalized adult psychiatric patients at high risk for suicide. Specific Aim 2: Examine the mechanisms of peer mentorship by measuring the effects of PREVAIL on potential mediators,including hope and belongingness. Specific Aim 3: Identify barriers and facilitators to implementation of PREVAIL.
The Acceptability and Feasibility of an ED-based, Peer-delivered, Suicide Safety Planning Intervention...
Suicidal IdeationSuicide2 moreSafety planning is a brief, ED-feasible intervention which has been demonstrated to save lives, and has been universally recommended by every recent expert consensus panel on suicide prevention strategies. In one popular version of the safety plan developed by Stanley et al, the patient is encouraged to write out the following items: identifying personal signs of a crisis; helpful internal coping strategies; social contacts or settings which may distract from a crisis; using family members or friends for help when in crisis; mental health professionals who can be contacted when in crisis; and restricting access to lethal means. In most emergency departments, safety-planning is done by clinical personnel such as psychologists or social workers, but these providers are often too busy to perform safety-planning well or have multiple other patient care responsibilities. This study aims to find out if ED patients prefer to complete a safety plan with a peer supporter or clinical personnel. People who are visiting the emergency department for thoughts of self-harm will be asked to participate.
Group Interventions for Suicidal African Americans
DepressionMental Illness2 moreThe investigator is conducting a hybrid efficacy-effectiveness randomized controlled trial with low-income African American suicide attempters. Guided by the Theory of Triadic Influence (TTI), this pilot randomized controlled trial aims: to determine if psychosocial group intervention (PGI) is more effective than enhanced treatment as usual (ETAU) in reducing suicidal behavior (ideation, attempts; primary outcome) and improving its correlates (depressive symptoms, hopelessness, quality of life) (secondary outcomes) in low-income African Americans with a recent attempt. to determine if PGI is more effective than ETAU at bolstering intrapersonal (I), social/situational (SS), and cultural/environmental (CE) risk and protective factors that mediate the condition-suicidal behavior and correlates link and thus serve as mechanisms of change. to determine I, SS, and CE variables that moderate the condition-suicidal behavior link and thus serve as predictors of intervention outcome. Hypothesis for Aim 1: At post-intervention and follow-up, PGI participants will evidence greater improvements in suicidal behavior and its correlates than those in ETAU. Hypothesis for Aim 2: Changes in these risk and protective factors will account for condition effects on outcomes: (1) psychological distress, aggression, impulsivity, substance abuse, low self-esteem, and suicide acceptability (I-risk); (2) perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness, relationship discord, intimate partner violence perpetration and victimization (SS-risk); (3) access to a weapon and barriers to service utilization (CE-risk); (4) reasons for living, optimism, positive ethnic identity, effective coping, and spiritual well-being (I-protective); (5) overall family health and social support from family and friends (SS-protective); and (6) religious involvement and effectiveness of obtaining resources (CE-protective). Hypothesis for Aim 3: Individuals (1) having fewer Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) disorders and attachment styles characterized by positivity toward the self and others (I); (2) children and more limited trauma histories (SS); and (3) more daily hassles and less exposure to community disorder (CE) will evidence greater reductions in suicidal behavior and its correlates and greater enhancements in quality of life at post-intervention and follow-up.
Adjunctive CB1 Agonist Nabilone in Inpatients With Active Suicidal Ideation
Suicidal IdeationSuicide is a major crisis worldwide with rates projected to continue to increase. There is currently a dearth of novel pharmacologic treatment options for suicide available on the market. The endocannabinoid system has been recently shown to be associated with mood disorders including suicidality. The aim of the study is to determine whether treatment with Nabilone is capable of reducing suicidal ideation in adults after 3 days.
Virtual Reality and Speech Analysis for the Assessment of Impulsivity and Decision-making
Suicidal IdeationIntroduction: Impulsivity is present in a range of mental disorders and has been associated with suicide. Traditional measures of impulsivity have certain limitations, such as the time required for administration or the lack of ecological validity. Virtual Reality (VR) may overcome these issues. This study aims to validate the VR assessment tool "Spheres & Shield Maze Task" and speech analysis by comparing them with traditional measures. The hypothesis is that these innovative tools will be reliable and acceptable by patients, potentially improving the simultaneous assessment of impulsivity, decision-making, and jumping to conclusions. Methods and analysis: The sample consisted of adults divided into three groups: psychiatric outpatients with a history of suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors, psychiatric outpatients without such a history, and healthy volunteers. The sample size required was estimated at 300 participants (100 per group). Participants will complete the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 11; the Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, Positive Urgency, Impulsive Behavior Scale; Iowa Gambling Task; Continuous Performance Test; Stop signal Task, and Go/no-go task, three questions of emotional affect, the Spheres & Shield Maze Task and two satisfaction surveys. During these tasks, participant speech will be recorded. External and internal consistency of the VR environment will be calculated. The association between VR-assessed impulsivity and history of suicidal thoughts and/or behavior, and the association between speech and impulsivity and decision-manking will also be explored. Ethics and dissemination: This study will result in a series of manuscripts that will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication. It is hoped that this VR assessment tool combined with speech analysis can be used regularly in research and/or clinical settings in the near future.
Efficacy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Impulsivity and Suicidality Among Clients With...
Bipolar DisorderPsychiatric nurses face a huge challenge in predicting and preventing suicide behaviour in their patients with bipolar disorders, but it may also be one of the most accurate measures of how well their clinical care is working. In addition to, high impulsivity scores are associated with increased overall functional impairment, a higher number of episodes with early onset, and a higher number of past suicide attempts, as well as increased substance intake. Thus, this study aimed at evaluating the efficacy acceptance and commitment therapy on impulsivity and suicidality among bipolar clients. research hypnosis Clients who engaged in acceptance and commitment therapy had less impulsivity than the control group. Clients who engaged in acceptance and commitment therapy had less suicidality than the control group.
Feasibility Study of a Software Application for Patients Hospitalized After Suicidal Ideation or...
SuicideAttempted1 moreThe primary objective of this feasibility study is to assess the feasibility, and usability of a software application to deliver targeted interactive exercises to patients recently hospitalized for suicidal ideation or suicide attempts.
Impact of Clinician Virtual Human Interaction Training in Emotional Self-Awareness on Patients Suicidal...
SuicideWorking with patients at risk for suicide is highly stressful for clinicians and often elicits powerful negative emotional responses that may adversely affect suicidal outcomes. A proposed explanation has been that negative emotional responses may result in less empathic communication and unwitting rejection of the patient, which is liable to damage therapeutic alliance. Thus, there is a need for clinician training in effective management of negative emotions towards suicidal patients, which can result in tangible improvement in suicidal outcomes. The training must be web-based, scalable and easy to disseminate, making it available to clinicians everywhere. In this project, the study team will address this critical need by using Virtual Human Interaction (VHI) to train outpatient clinicians in emotional self-awareness (ESA), which includes both recognition of one's own negative emotional responses, and ability to engage in verbal empathic communication with acutely suicidal patients. The study team will conduct a prospective multisite, blinded, randomized trial comparing VHI ESA training with a Control condition, which will assess both clinician-level and patient-level outcomes in 80 outpatient clinician participants (CPs) and 400 of their participating patients (PPs). Using the same VHI scenarios, the ESA group will receive clinician-focused, comprehensive feedback in ESA, while the Control group will assess the VH's suicide risk without receiving the ESA feedback. The study team will measure efficacy of the VHI ESA training on clinicians by comparing ESA feedback and Control CPs' post-training (T2) ESA towards virtual humans, adjusting for pre-training (T1) ESA. The study team will measure the impact of the VHI ESA training on patients' suicidal outcomes by assessing the primary and secondary outcome variables in both CPs and PPs three times: at baseline (T0), after the first post-training treatment session (T3) and one-month post-training (T4). The study team will examine the role of therapeutic alliance as a possible mediator of the relationship between clinicians' ESA and their patients' Suicidal Ideation (SI) and Suicide Crisis Syndrome (SCS). To accomplish this goal, the study team will use the novel validated suicide risk assessment instruments developed in preliminary studies: the Therapist Response Questionnaire - Suicide Form (TRQ-SF), which assesses negative emotional responses to suicidal patients, and the Suicide Crisis inventory (SCI), which assesses the SCS severity and predicts near-term suicidal behavior. For web-based VHI training the study team will use the already tested and disseminated web-based empathy-teaching platform, coupled with an assessment of verbal empathy measured by the Empathic Communication Coding System (ECCS).
Virtual Hope Box - Effectiveness of a Smartphone App for Coping With Suicidal Ideation
Suicidal IdeationThoughts of Self Harm1 moreA hope box or self soothing kit is a therapeutic tool employed by clinicians with patients expressing suicidal ideation, significant distress, or otherwise at risk of suicidal or non-suicidal self harm. A "Virtual Hope Box" (VHB) takes the common hope box practice and uses smartphone features to enhance the experience. The rich multimedia features on a smartphone allow more varied options. Furthermore, these devices are already a common repository for user-generated and user-preferred media, which will allow for a highly personalized VHB that is highly portable and always available to a user in distress. We hypothesize that: Patients in the (VHB) intervention condition will demonstrate pre-post reductions in 1) severity of suicidal ideation 2) ability to cope with stressors and 3) increases in perceived reasons for living Patients in the intervention condition will demonstrate greater pre-post reductions in symptoms of suicidal ideation, ability to cope with stressors, and perceived reasons for living compared to patients in the (ETAU) control condition. Patients and clinicians will find VHB to be beneficial and its use readily integrated into practice.
miRNAs, Suicide, and Ketamine - Plasma Exosomal microRNAs as Novel Biomarkers for Suicidality and...
Major Depressive DisorderThe purpose of this study is to examine whether neural-derived exosomal miRNAs are differentially expressed that are specific to suicidal ideation or behavior, and which by affecting specific miRNA targets and pathways, are associated with suicidal behavior and response to ketamine. The following groups of subjects will be examined: 1) major depressive disorder (MDD) with a recent suicide attempt (in past 2 weeks), 2) MDD with serious ideation (in the past 7 days) without recent suicide attempt (in the past 6 months), 3) MDD without clinically significant suicidal ideation (in the past 7 days) or recent suicide attempt (in the past 6 months), and 4) healthy controls. Both suicidal and non-suicidal MDD will be given ketamine (0.5 mg/kg, IV) and blood will be drawn at predose, 30 min, 180 min, 24 hours, and 14 days post-infusion to measure changes in miRNAs. As of May 2022, study is in data analysis. Final outcomes will be known once analysis is complete. As of July 2022, all data collection is complete. The primary and secondary data outcome measure results are complete. The investigators are working on final analysis of the mRNA samples, to provide final responses to questions posed in the Detailed Description section below and listed here: 1) whether suicidal ideation or behavior is associated with differences in the expression of specific miRNAs, 2) whether anti-suicidal/antidepressant effects of ketamine is associated with miRNAs changes, and 3) whether miRNA/mRNA-regulatory pathways contribute to suicide pathogenesis and treatment response.