Effects of a Targeted Web-Based Suicide Prevention Intervention on Suicidal Ideation and Self-Directed Violence: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Veterans
VA Office of Research and Development
Summary
Suicide prevention is a top priority for VA as all continue to seek new and inventive ways to reduce suicide rates among Veterans. Many experts agree that suicide prevention efforts could be improved by making suicide-specific interventions easier to access. The current project aims to move toward that goal by testing a web-based suicide prevention intervention using an experimental design. The roughly 40-minute intervention aims to teach Veterans coping skills that are designed to ease the emotional distress that often comes with thoughts of suicide. The project will evaluate whether Veterans who receive this intervention report more improvement in suicidal thoughts and behaviors than Veterans who receive a standard course of health care visits. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors will be measured over the course of one month. The investigators hypothesize that Veterans who receive the intervention will report lower suicidal thoughts and behaviors than those who receive the standard course of health care.
Description
Approximately 100,000 United States Veterans have died by suicide since 2000, at age- and sex-adjusted rates which far outpace that of non-Veterans. Suicide prevention remains VA's highest priority while the investigators seek innovative, research driven approaches. Psychotherapeutic interventions for suicide prevention are one area for further innovation. Specifically, strategies from evidence-based interventions that directly address suicidality could be distilled into briefer, more scalable formats to expand access to suicide prevention interventions. Most psychotherapies target syndromes…