Implementation of Caring Contacts

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Status: Completed

Conditions: Psychiatric Hospitalization

Treatments: Other: Caring Contact

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05294549

5262

Details and patient eligibility

About

This quality improvement (QI) project will adapt and improve an evidence-based suicide-prevention initiative for Sunnybrook patients at high risk of suicide following psychiatric inpatient discharge, targeting one of Sunnybrook's QI Plan goals of reducing suicide at Sunnybrook. Caring Contacts, brief communications of hope, support and information sent to patients post-discharge, are a simple and low-cost intervention with proven effectiveness in reducing suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, and loneliness, while increasing hopefulness and feelings of connection to the health care system. Pilot data provides some initial, promising evidence however additional patient input is required to improve the acceptability and effectiveness of the intervention to reduce suicide-related outcomes. Feedback from patients and peer advisors will guide iterative improvements with the ultimate goal of implementing an improved version of Caring Contacts as a standard clinical practice for all patients discharged from the Sunnybrook Adult Inpatient Psychiatry Unit.

For phase one of this QI project, participants will be patients from the Sunnybrook Inpatient Psychiatry Unit with suicidality and community members with lived experience of psychiatric hospitalization and suicidality. Investigators will conduct focus groups on the inpatient unit of 8-12 inpatient participants to gather feedback about the current Caring Contact intervention. For community members virtual focus groups will be conducted. For phase two, participants will be patients from the Sunnybrook Inpatient Psychiatry Unit with suicidality. The updated intervention will be sent to 8-12 participants. Then investigators will host virtual focus groups to gather feedback from these participants about the intervention. For phase three, participants will be patients from the Sunnybrook Inpatient Psychiatry Unit with suicidality. Investigators will send the revised intervention to 30-40 participants. Participants will complete symptom and feedback questionnaires when they receive the intervention.

Enrollment: 28 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Provision of written informed consent
2. Age 18 or above
3. Ability to read and understand English
4. Have an email address
5. The ability to understand and comply with the requirements of the project and capable of providing informed consent

For inclusion in the outpatient focus groups participants must additionally have previous lived experience of psychiatric hospitalization with suicidal ideation or behaviour.

For inclusion in the inpatient focus groups during phase one and for inclusion in the second and third phases of the project, participants must additionally 1) be an inpatient on the Sunnybrook Adult Inpatient Psychiatry Unit at the time of recruitment and 2) they must have been admitted to the unit with suicidal ideation or behaviour as determined by their C-SSRS score at admission.

Exclusion criteria

• A primary diagnosis of a Major Neurocognitive Disorder

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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28 participants in 1 patient group

Caring Contact

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Caring Contact