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 identify factors (sleep, psychiatric characteristics, stressful life events, and work environment characteristics) that potentiate or mitigate adverse effects of real-world stressors that predispose nurses to suicidal risk. The specific aims are: Aim 1. To investigate associations between sleep, stressful life events (life stressors, discrimination, lateral violence), psychiatric characteristics (psychiatric diagnosis, subjective mood), work environment characteristics (workload, shift type and duration, overtime, nurse work environment, and team relations) and stress (self-report and heart rate variability) in working nursing professionals while controlling for standard covariates known to influence stress. Aim 2. To determine if stress exposure (self-report and HRV) is associated with predisposing factors (sleep, stressful life events, additional psychiatric characteristics, and work environment characteristics), and to explore whether stress mediates the effect of predisposing factors on suicidal ideation in working nursing professionals. Exploratory Aim. To explore the preliminary impact of an existing sleep intervention (sleep health promotion kit) on self-reported stress, HRV, sleep, and psychiatric health outcomes including depression, burnout, and suicidal ideation. Read Less

This study is developing and refining a novel Virtual Reality (VR) supplement for inpatient treatment: the Practice Experiences for School Reintegration (PrESR) program. The PrESR will provide immersive school experiences for inpatient adolescents (with suicidal-related admissions) to practice skills in real-world settings with the guidance of a trained clinician within the confines of a hospital. This pilot study follows a Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) to conduct a pilot optimization trial of the PrESR to inform the feasibility of training clinicians, the ability to recruit adolescent inpatient participants, and management of experimental conditions. This study is not powered to test hypotheses; however, in addition to assessing feasibility and acceptability, this pilot trial will assess candidate intermediary and outcome measures. Read Less

In an online randomized trial of Safety in Dementia with national recruitment and longitudinal follow-up, we will recruit informal caregivers of community-dwelling adults with dementia who have firearm access. Read Less

Study Objective: to develop a phone-based intervention to aid parents of suicidal adolescents to adhere to lethal means safety. Lethal means counseling is the practice of educating patients and their families about limiting access to items that can be used to attempt suicide. Though lethal means counseling is standard practice in treating suicidal patients, there is little experimental literature related to its utilization across different providers and its efficacy. Further, there is a significant gap in the literature on lethal means counseling as it relates to adolescents. The proposed project will investigate a novel text message-based intervention aimed to promote lethal means safety. Read Less

People with psychotic disorders are excluded from most suicide-focused clinical trials despite incredibly high rates of completed suicide, and interventions that have been tested for this population have shown limited impact on suicide. Emotion dysregulation is a significant suicidogenic factor that is understudied in people with psychotic disorders. The investigators propose to implement and evaluate an intervention targeting emotion dysregulation in people with psychotic disorders while employing rigorous statistical modeling and measurement techniques including Ecological Momentary Assessment, which will support future advanced research on suicide and suicide prevention for this high-risk group. Read Less

The overarching aim of the Success Over Stress Prevention Project is to reduce African American youth suicide. This study examines the impact of a 15-session, group-delivered, culturally-grounded, cognitive-behavioral intervention (i.e., PI Robinson's Adapted-Coping with Stress Course [A-CWS]), on the outcomes of interest, when it is delivered by social workers who are indigenous to the school system. The main objectives of this project are to (a) determine whether the intervention is effective when facilitated by social workers who are indigenous to the school system and (b) enhance resilience, increase adaptive coping strategies, and reduce both intrapersonal and interpersonal violence among youth receiving the prevention intervention. It is expected that increases in adaptive coping will lead to an increased ability for youth to manage stressors, thereby decreasing the incidence of suicide and violence among the youth. In addition, it is expected that evidence of the intervention's effectiveness, when facilitated by social workers who are indigenous to the school system, will lead to greater dissemination and sustainability of the intervention, thus, providing access to effective intervention resources to greater numbers of African American youth. Read Less

The overall aim of this study is to reduce suicide among sexual and gender diverse youth ages 18-24 years old. This study will compare the effectiveness of two brief suicide prevention interventions that have been adapted for use with this population to use in primary care via telehealth and will recruit youth from primary care clinics in Texas metropolitan areas. The primary study outcome is suicidal ideation. Each clinic will be randomly assigned to deliver one of the two study interventions. Read Less

Veterans Coordinated Community Care (3C) Study will recruit 850 Veterans at risk for suicide post inpatient hospitalization. Each participant will be randomly assigned to treatment as usual (TAU) or TAU plus the Coping Long Term with Active Suicide Program (CLASP), with follow-up for 6 months after discharge. Outcomes include suicide-related behaviors (including deaths due to suicide, opioid overdose, or other substance-related accidents; and nonfatal suicide attempts) and suicidal ideation and functioning. Read Less

The purpose of this research study is to learn about people who use the National Suicide Prevention (NSP) Lifeline during a suicidal crisis and those who don't. The researchers would also like to learn whether people who have experienced a suicidal crisis could benefit from participating in a therapy session about their thoughts and perceptions of the NSP Lifeline. Read Less

High rates of Veteran suicide remain a tragedy. Rates of Veteran suicide have not decreased for 10 years, despite the best efforts of the field. Those interventions that do exist have only modest effects, which are simply insufficient for the magnitude of the problem. This proposal will combine two treatments - brief cognitive behavioral therapy (BCBT) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Both of these interventions can reduce suicide and are available at Veterans Affairs Medical Centers across the country, yet to date no one has combined these therapies. This proposal will test the effect of this combination, and, if successful, will lead to a novel yet implementable new treatment to reduce Veteran suicide. Read Less

The objective of this study is to build the Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Research Network to support the development of a Network Participant Registry and characterization of systems and interventions to examine statewide population health outcomes. All 12-13 sites represented in the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (https://www.utsystem.edu/pophealth/tcmhcc/) have been invited to participate in the Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Research Network as "Nodes." 12 Nodes have been selected for this project. Each Node has obtained support of senior institutional leadership including the department chair. Leadership from each Node provided input and edits in the study design process by committee, with a focus on the inclusion of the "end user" in design decisions. Nodes will work closely with the Network Hub leadership to recruit, monitor, and retain participants. This will require active engagement and sustained relationships with clinics within the academic medical center as well as clinics in the community (i.e., psychiatry, psychology, counselling). Read Less