Reducing Suicide Risk Among Aging Caregivers of Persons With AD/ADRD: Adapting, Implementing, and Evaluating Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Interventions
Texas Tech University
Summary
This project aims to adapt, implement, and evaluate a Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills training group intervention for aging adult family caregivers of person with Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) to reduce suicidality. By adapting this modality, the investigators will provide a scalable intervention tailored for this high-risk population, maximizing the public health impact and improving suicide prevention.
Description
Family caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) experience caregiving-related distress and have about 650% higher rates of suicide ideation (SI; 32.32%) compared to the general population (4.3%). Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), an evidence-based intervention for suicide, addresses multiple areas of psychosocial functioning. Standard DBT is often too re-source-intensive (6 months to 1 year of weekly individual sessions and 1.5-2.5-hour weekly skills training group sessions) and is not tailored to family caregivers of persons with AD/…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 50–120 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * being age 50 and over (as most informal caregivers of persons with AD/ADRD are 50 or older; AARP, 2020; Chi et al., 2019) * being the primary informal caregiver * living with an AD/ADRD-diagnosed patient * being willing to be prodded for bloodspots * demonstrating English-fluency * endorsing a direct or indirect SI/suicide risk * Eligible individuals will score above clinical cutoffs for SI/suicide risk on at least 1 of 3 measures: the Suicide Behavior Questionnaire-R (SBQ-R; score \> 6; Osman et al., 2002), Interpersonal Needs Question-naire (INQ; thwarted belonging sco…
Interventions
- BehavioralAdapted Dialectical Behavior Therapy
DBT includes skills training groups, unlike other suicide-specific treatments, with modules on distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness (Linehan, 2014)
Location
- Garrison Institute on AgingLubbock, Texas