Suicide Clinical Trials

Suicide rates among Veterans with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) are intractably high, representing a serious public health concern and a critical target for interventions. Yet, at present available treatments offer modest benefits. Thus, there remains an urgent need to identify novel approaches to address suicide risk in this population. Previous reports have linked suicide risk with poor social functioning. Emerging evidence from basic affective neuroscience research has indicated that effective social functioning is contingent on intact emotion awareness. Consistent with these findings, individuals with SMI at risk of suicide display social functioning difficulties along with poor emotion awareness (i.e., alexithymia). Employing a proof-of-concept design, the aim of the present study is to test the feasibility and acceptability of a novel, blended psychoeducation and digital mHealth (mobile health) intervention with smartphones designed to target alexithymia and poor social functioning to reduce suicide risk in Veterans with SMI. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to advance a non-pharmacologic suicide preventive intervention with wide dissemination potential as an innovative high-yield solution to reduce suicide rates. The investigators aim to achieve this with this study of Brain Emotion Circuitry Self-Monitoring and Regulation Therapy for Daily Rhythms (BE-SMART-DR), that provides self-directed strategies to regularize sleep and other DRs to reduce short-term suicide risk that can be used lifelong to potentially also reduce long-term suicide risk. Read Less

Despite efforts to prevent suicide, US rates are climbing, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth. Digital tools, especially personal smartphones, are promising avenues to address these issues and can be used to provide a unique understanding of risk factors, including psychological distress, anhedonia and behavioral withdrawal, and sleep disturbance among high-risk individuals. This project aims to enhance the effectiveness of the delivery of preventative health care to youth at risk for suicide by developing a comprehensive digital platform that allows practitioners to integrate mobile sensing data and HIPAA-compliant client communication tools into their management of these young people. Read Less

The risk for suicide increases by nearly 50% in the first year that service members transition from the military to civilian life underscoring the need for effective strategies to facilitate help seeking among Veterans vulnerable to self-directed violence. Yet despite a great need for treatment, more than half of returning Veterans at risk for suicide do not initiate mental health services. VA has embarked on the regular use of communication campaigns as part of a public health approach designed to reach the larger Veteran population with messages promoting help seeking. However, what types of messages effectively change beliefs and behaviors for at-risk Veterans resistant to seek treatment is unclear. The main objective of this study is to develop and test the use of public messaging to increase treatment seeking among Veterans at risk for suicide and resistant to seek mental health care following separation from military service. This represents the first study to systematically develop public messaging strategies for populations at risk for suicide. Read Less

There is currently no readily available pharmacologic intervention for suicidal ideation, a true psychiatric emergency, in the Emergency Department (ED). Investigators aim to trial low-dose, intravenous ketamine, a drug with well-established use in treatment-resistant depression, for patients who present to the ED with suicidal ideation. Read Less

Few treatments target core features of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in Veterans. Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback can provide information regarding brain activation associated with suicide-specific rumination, defined as a "repetitive mental fixation on one's suicidal thoughts and intentions." The goal of this feasibility study is for Veterans to learn strategies for modulating activity within brain regions that have been demonstrated to contribute to the maintenance of rumination, as they receive neurofeedback feedback signals from the brain. Read Less

The aim of this study is to determine whether learning three skills for managing negative emotions and receiving reminders via smartphone to practice these skills reduces how often and how intensely one experiences emotional distress and suicidal thoughts. Read Less

The goal of this study is to evaluate in an effectiveness-implementation type I hybrid trial, an enhanced version of eHealth Familias Unidas for reducing depressive, anxious symptoms and suicide behavior in Hispanic youth. The study will use a randomized rollout design with 18 pediatric primary care clinics in the South Florida area. Read Less

The primary aim of this grant is to conduct pilot testing on a novel personalized mobile intervention for suicide - Mobile Application to Prevent Suicide (MAPS) - and to establish feasibility, acceptability, safety, and primary outcomes (i.e., suicidal ideation and behavior; re-hospitalization). Read Less

This clinical trial is part of a series of brief interventions to reduce suicide risk in collaboration with the social media platform RallyPoint, a site specifically designed for U.S. servicemembers and veterans to connect with one another. In this RCT (Intervention 3: Professional Outreach), the investigators will test a psychoeducational intervention aimed at increasing users' likelihood of reaching out to mental health resources (e.g., suicide hotline) when experiencing distress. Read Less

This clinical trial is part of a series of brief interventions to reduce suicide risk in collaboration with the social media platform RallyPoint, a site specifically designed for U.S. servicemembers and veterans to connect with one another. In this RCT (Intervention 1: Peer Support), the investigators will test a psychoeducational intervention aimed at increasing peer responses to RallyPoint posts that a machine learning risk algorithm developed by the current team has identified for signs of distress (e.g., descriptions of suicidal thoughts and behaviors or other mental health concerns). In this intervention, the investigators will flag these distressed posts and prompt peers to reply to the posts by providing informational blurbs detailing helpful peer responses. Read Less

The primary aim of the present study is leverage existing infrastructure to develop novel technological features for a novel personalized smartphone intervention system, called the Mobile Application to Prevent Suicide (MAPS), and to establish feasibility, acceptability, safety, and estimate key parameters for primary outcomes (i.e., suicidal ideation and behavior; re-hospitalization), and target mechanisms. Read Less