The Acceptability and Feasibility of an ED-based, Peer-delivered, Suicide Safety Planning Intervention

University of Arkansas

Status: Completed

Conditions: Suicide, Attempted; Suicidal Ideation; Mental Health Issue

Treatments: Other: Peer Supporter Safety Planning

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04068142

239486

Details and patient eligibility

About

Safety planning is a brief, ED-feasible intervention which has been demonstrated to save lives, and has been universally recommended by every recent expert consensus panel on suicide prevention strategies. In one popular version of the safety plan developed by Stanley et al, the patient is encouraged to write out the following items: identifying personal signs of a crisis; helpful internal coping strategies; social contacts or settings which may distract from a crisis; using family members or friends for help when in crisis; mental health professionals who can be contacted when in crisis; and restricting access to lethal means. In most emergency departments, safety-planning is done by clinical personnel such as psychologists or social workers, but these providers are often too busy to perform safety-planning well or have multiple other patient care responsibilities.

This study aims to find out if ED patients prefer to complete a safety plan with a peer supporter or clinical personnel. People who are visiting the emergency department for thoughts of self-harm will be asked to participate.

Full description

This project aims to answer the following three research questions: (1) In general, do ED patients with suicidal ideation/attempt prefer to interact with/receive support from peers with life experiences of suicide or clinical professionals who might have such life experiences or not? (2) Will patients with suicidal ideation/attempt accept a peer-delivered safety planning intervention as opposed to one delivered by clinical personnel? (3) Are peer-delivered safety plans of equal quality as those delivered by clinical personnel?

Enrollment: 37 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 89 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients presenting for suicidal ideation (SI) or after a suicide attempt to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Emergency Department (ED)
• Willingness to engage in safety planning with trained non-clinical staff
• English-speaking and English-writing (as translators will not be available for this study)

Exclusion criteria

• <18 or >89 years of age
• Patients appearing critically-ill
• Incarcerated or in police custody
• Currently intoxicated with alcohol or other substance
• ED staff objection to patient enrollment in study
• Unwilling or unable to complete the safety plan with a peer supporter
• Unwilling or unable to show the safety plan to clinical staff

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

37 participants in 2 patient groups

Clinical Personnel Safety Planning

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients will complete a traditional written suicide safety plan with clinical personnel.

Peer Supporter Safety Planning

Experimental group

Description:

Patients will complete a traditional written suicide safety plan with peer supporters.

Treatment:

Other: Peer Supporter Safety Planning