Therapeutic Evaluative Conditioning to Reduce Adolescents' Self-injurious Thoughts and Behaviors During and After Psychiatric Inpatient Hospitalization
Franciscan Hospital For Children, INC.
Summary
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among adolescents, with the highest risk period for suicide being the month following psychiatric inpatient hospitalization. The investigators propose testing a brief, scalable intervention using evaluative conditioning aimed at reducing suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents during and after inpatient hospitalization. Scalable interventions, such as the one proposed that reduce suicide risk during this markedly high-risk period, could result in large-scale decreases in suicide death.
Description
The project has two phases: a pilot phase and randomized controlled trial phase. The study within each phase consists of three parts: an inpatient study period, where baseline data are collected, the intervention is initiated, and treatment targets and outcomes are assessed; a one-month post-discharge period, where the intervention is continued and treatment targets and outcomes are assessed and a one-month post-intervention period, where the intervention is no longer administered but treatment targets and outcomes are assessed to test whether the intervention has sustained treatment effects.…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 12–19 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Be a patient on McLean-Franciscan Child and Adolescent Inpatient Program (MF-CAIP) of Franciscan Children's (FC) * Be 12-19 years-old * Own a smartphone * Have a parent/guardian that can provide permission * Child can assent * Presentation to the hospital with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt. Exclusion Criteria: * Any factor that impairs an individual's ability to comprehend and effectively participate in the study, including * an inability to speak or write English fluently * the presence of gross cognitive impairment due to flo…
Interventions
- BehavioralTherapeutic Evaluative Conditioning
Participants are told which pictures are "matched pairs." They find the "matched pairs" among 4 or 8 pictures. By associating pictures and words associated with SITB (e.g., pictures of cut skin, pictures of people engaging in potentially suicidal behaviors, and the word "death") with naturally aversive images (e.g., snakes and spiders), it increases the aversion to SITB. The second goal is to increase liking toward the self by pairing self-relevant stimuli (e.g., the participant's name or other self-relevant details, as well as words like "I" and "me").
- BehavioralNeutral comparison condition
Match neutral pictures to account for doing an intervention.
Location
- Franciscan Hospital For Children, Inc.Brighton, Massachusetts