Active clinical trials for "Suicide"

Project WISE (Workplace Integrated Support & Education) includes developmental and pilot research to create an e-learning training in suicide safety planning enhanced with novel skill-building technologies that can be integrated into the routine workflow of nurses serving patients hospitalized for medical, surgical, or traumatic injury reasons. This study pilots an initial version of this eLearning training and collects data on the acceptability of the training and its components as well as engagement of nurses in the training. The evaluation will inform iterations of the training.

This initial study is a pilot feasibility study with a primary objective of assessing the feasibility of a larger study by evaluating the procedures and methodology, as well as collecting pilot data. The eventual research goal is to demonstrate whether a suicide prevention video in addition to standard care for suicidality is an effective strategy to reduce suicidal behaviours in individuals with a history of such. The suicide prevention video is developed as an educational tool to inform participants of the various consequences of suicide as well as giving a message of hope. It is hoped that such an approach will help to reduce future suicidal behaviours in those who have a history of such. If so, then this could be made as a part of the standard of care in treating patients with suicidality.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a smartphone-assisted problem-solving therapy (PST) service across Emergency Departments in Ontario. A total of 25 Emergency Departments have been randomized to either usual care or the smartphone-assisted PST service intervention. The main cluster randomized controlled trial will use data collected from the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) to assess the impact of this service on suicides and re-presentations to hospital for self-harm as well as other health service use one-year post study launch.

Background: Previous suicide attempt is known to be a strong risk factor for repetition and repetition is common within the first year after an episode of deliberate self-harm (DSH). There has been growing interest in brief interventions for this population that are focused on maintaining long-term contact and/or offering re-engagement with services when needed. Despite telephone-delivered interventions have shown promising results in suicide reattempt prevention, subjective impact of such brief contact interventions and effectiveness mechanisms have never been evaluated.

Depression treatment typically is slow acting. Patients presenting with acute suicidality have few immediate treatment options. However, sub-anesthetic doses of ketamine have been now widely tested as a rapid-acting treatment for depression. Gregory Larkin et al at Yale showed this could be applied to suicidal patients, with 14 of 15 participants showing remission of suicidal thinking within 40 min of the administration of ketamine, with 13 showing lasting remission out to 10 days. No serious side effects were reported. This project proposes to conduct a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of this, same intervention in military patients recently hospitalized for suicidal thinking. After being assessed, and giving informed consent, participants would receive 0.2mg/kg ketamine or placebo. Their suicidal thinking, depression, and other symptoms would be monitored acutely for 240 min after drug infusion, and the for lasting changes the next day, at hospital discharge, 2 weeks, and 10 weeks. Potential adverse events will be monitored via the electronic medical record for up to a year.

Many patients at risk for suicide are discharged from the ED with little or no intervention. Evidence-based suicide prevention interventions, like universal screening and safety planning should be adopted in clinical practice to help prevent suicidal behavior. This study will test the long-term sustainability of the nurse administered universal screening implemented in the original ED-SAFE study. Also, the investigators will test the impact of a new personalized Safety Planning Intervention guided by Lean has on suicide composite outcomes. The ED-SAFE-2 will use a stepped wedge design where the original eight ED-SAFE sites will collect quantitative and qualitative data during the three phases: Baseline, Implementation, and Maintenance. Using this data, the ED-SAFE-2 will examine both within and between site differences for existing screening practices and new care processes, including safety planning. Most of the data collection on outcomes will be done by retrospective chart review. A Lean Implementation Strategy will be used to ensure that adoption of improved care processes are fully supported vertically and horizontally within the organization, infrastructure is built that supports the efforts, and that the protocols fit naturally within roles, responsibilities, and clinical flow. Consistent with the RFA's emphasis, the intervention target will be the clinician's behavior, including, at minimum, screening and safety planning. All emergency mental health and nursing personnel at the sites will be trained on safety planning, and Lean will be used to help ensure the safety planning is being implemented properly and consistently. The mechanisms of action of the combination of the safety planning training and Lean will be studied, allowing the team to establish both the effect the intervention has on the intervention target but also on the mechanisms of action comprised of departmental culture change and infrastructure support.

The goal of this research project is to conduct a pilot RCT of Text4Strength, an interactive automated text messaging extension of Sources of Strength (SoS), a universal school-based suicide prevention program that prepares diverse 'key opinion leaders' to conduct public health messaging and activities with peers to increase school-wide positive coping norms, communication with trusted adults, and seeking help for suicidal peers (Wyman et al., 2010). The investigators previously developed and field tested Text4Strength messages (RSRB#00047481 and 53924 closed) to demonstrate feasibility, safety, student engagement, and student-perceived relevance for a universal texting extension. The investigators will now conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial in one large school in Western New York that has implemented Sources of Strength for the past two years. The school will continue with Sources of Strength in the 2016-17 school, and add this school-wide texting component as part of this research study. Consistent with Leon's guidelines on pilot studies, the primary focus will be to identify areas of promise, success in reaching proximate targets, and the need for additional modifications (Leon, Davis, & Kraemer, 2011). Findings from this study will inform further refinement of the text messaging program and provide preliminary data for a larger efficacy trial.

Each year in the United States (U.S.), over 40,000 individuals die by suicide, and approximately half of these deaths occur by intentional, self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Given these staggering statistics, efforts to minimize individuals' access to firearms during at-risk periods has been identified as a critical if fraught suicide prevention strategy. Among individuals at risk for suicide who present to clinical settings, a crucial component of the clinical management of suicide risk is to ask about firearm ownership/access and counsel on firearm safety (e.g., encourage an at-risk person to transfer the firearm to a loved one until risk abates). Despite the clinical, ethical, and in some cases legal mandate of this intervention, a substantial proportion of clinicians are woefully undertrained and therefore unprepared to manage suicide risk and appropriately deliver counseling on firearm safety. Clinical and empirical evidence suggests that even among patients identified to be at increased risk for suicide, few clinicians ask about firearms or provide counseling on firearm safety. One key reason for this fissure between recommendations and actual implementation of recommendations is that strategies for discussing firearm safety in a way that is impactful and yields patient adherence to recommendations have yet to be established. One common approach to attempt to garner pro-health behavior change is the use of fear appeals; however, research on the utility of this approach across non-firearm-related health interventions has been equivocal. Given the cultural importance placed on firearms in the U.S., the investigators contend that fear-based approaches to lethal means counseling may be counter-productive by creating defensive avoidance, thereby detracting from the purpose of counseling on firearm safety (i.e., patient safety). Further, patient adherence to recommendations to limit access to a firearm during at-risk periods may be increased when clinicians emphasize that limits on firearm access will decline when suicide risk abates (i.e., limits on firearm access will likely not be permanent). However, research has yet to determine if varying the level of fear messaging and/or emphasis on temporariness is actually useful and acceptable. To address this gap, the investigators will randomly assign participants to one of four experimental conditions: (1) low-fear/not-temporary; (2) low-fear/temporary; (3) high-fear/not-temporary; and (4) high-fear/temporary. Participants include undergraduate students who are vulnerable to suicide and reported owning or previously owning a firearm, reported access to a firearm, or reported possibly obtaining a firearm in the future. The investigators hypothesized that individuals randomly assigned to the low-fear/temporary group will (1) report greater intentions to adhere to recommendations to limit access to firearms during at-risk periods than the other groups at both post-intervention and one-month follow-up; (2) report greater actual adherence to recommendations at one-month follow-up; and (3) rate the lethal means counseling session as more acceptable than the other groups. Exploratory aims examined if the effects differed for individuals reporting actual current firearm ownership or access, membership in the National Rifle Association (NRA) or a similar organization, political affiliation, political ideology, greater personal importance of the Second Amendment, or severity of suicidal symptoms. Findings have the potential to inform clinical and public health approaches to limit at-risk individuals' access to firearms for safety purposes.

This pragmatic clinical trial will evaluate the effectiveness of two population-based outreach programs for preventing suicide attempts among patients identified as at-risk. The study will be conducted at Kaiser Permanente (KP) Washington (the lead site) and at HealthPartners, KP Colorado and KP Northwest. Electronic health records will be used to identify outpatients aged 18 or older who respond to a routinely administered PHQ depression questionnaire by reporting thoughts of death or self-harm "most of the days" or "nearly every day". This trial will be limited to patients receiving care from one of the four participating health systems. Eligible patients will be automatically assigned to continue in usual care (1/3) or to either of the two intervention programs (1/3 each). Those assigned to usual care will not be contacted at all by study staff and will continue to receive usual care from treating primary care and mental health providers. Both intervention programs involve outreach by Epic secure messaging (with optional telephone outreach for those not reading messages). The Care Management intervention includes routine outreach to assess ongoing risk of suicide attempt and care management to monitor and facilitate ongoing engagement in outpatient follow-up. The Care Manager will coordinate care with treatment by primary and behavioral health care providers using Epic Staff Messaging (or telephone contacts if necessary). The Skills Training intervention uses an online skills training program to support patients in developing and using self-management skills for emotion regulation and crisis management. A Coach will monitor each participant's use of the program and send periodic messages (using Epic secure messaging) to encourage and support use of the program and practice of program skills. Each intervention continues for up to one year. In all three groups (Usual Care, Care Management, and Skills Training) virtual data warehouse data will be used to identify likely suicide attempts over 18 months following randomization. Analyses will compare risk of suicide attempt among all those randomized, regardless of response to the initial invitation or level of participation in the intervention programs. Comparison of all those randomized is the only scientifically valid method for assessing the overall impact of either program on population-level risk of suicide attempt.

Primary Hypothesis: Participants in the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) gatekeeper training will be significantly more likely to have increased knowledge and preparedness to help people with suicidal ideation than participants who receive the resilience retreat. Secondary Hypotheses: Participants in ASIST gatekeeper training will not have higher levels of post-intervention distress or suicidal ideation compared to the resilience retreat. High levels of distress, grief, and alcohol abuse will significantly impact on the learning and retention of suicide intervention skills.