Veterans Coping Long-term With Active Suicide (CLASP-VA)

VA Office of Research and Development

Status: Completed

Conditions: Suicide

Treatments: Other: Safety Assessment and Follow Up Evaluation; Behavioral: Coping Long Term with Active Suicide (CLASP)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT01894841

IIR 13-026

Details and patient eligibility

About

The proposed study seeks to test the efficacy of an intervention to reduce suicide behaviors in Veterans. The Veterans Coping Long Term with Active Suicide Program (CLASP-VA) is an innovative, telephone-based intervention that combines elements of individual therapy, case management, and significant other/family therapy and is designed to be integrated into a VA system.

Full description

Suicide is a leading cause of death for military personnel, and for the first time in recorded history, rates of military suicides are exceeding civilian rates. Despite public and patient health costs associated with suicidal ideation and behavior, existing efforts haven't appreciably reduced rates of suicidal behavior in the military. Consequently, finding novel, efficacious, and acceptable methods to reduce suicide behaviors is imperative. The Veteran's Coping Long Term with Active Suicide Program (CLASP-VA) is a unique suicide reduction intervention that directly targets high-risk patients at the time of hospital discharge. It is one of the few empirically-developed and promising interventions (e.g., strong pilot data) for individuals hospitalized for suicide behavior.

The primary objective of this study is to test the efficacy of the CLASP intervention compared to a treatment as usual plus Safety Assessment and Follow-up Evaluation (SAFE) control condition. Efficacy will be determined by primary outcomes including: number of attempts, number of re-hospitalizations, severity, and chronicity of suicidal ideation. A secondary objective is identifying the types of patients who receive the most benefit from the CLASP-VA intervention.

Enrollment: 107 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• suicide attempt or suicidal ideation with any methods, plan, and/or intent to make a suicide attempt within 1 week of hospitalization
• age greater than 18
• have a telephone
• ability to speak, read, and understand spoken English sufficiently well to complete the procedures of the study

Exclusion criteria

• long-term psychiatric disorder
• diagnosis of borderline personality disorder
• cognitive impairment which would interfere with adequate participation in the project (MMSE <20)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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107 participants in 2 patient groups

CLASP Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

A 6 month adjunctive intervention consisting of 3 individual meetings, one family session, and 11 brief phone contacts with patient and identified significant other.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Coping Long Term with Active Suicide (CLASP)

Other: Safety Assessment and Follow Up Evaluation

Safety Assessment and follow up Evaluation

Other group

Description:

Treatment as usual plus enhanced monitoring.

Treatment:

Other: Safety Assessment and Follow Up Evaluation