A Health System/Community Partnership for Enhanced Outreach to Prevent Suicide Attempts

Randomized Controlled Trial of Health System/Community Partnership for Enhanced Outreach to Prevent Suicide Attempts

The goal of this study is to test an enhanced outreach intervention (EOI) delivered by Samaritans of Boston (a community organization that provides support during mental health crises) for people after they leave an emergency department (ED) visit for suicidal thoughts. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Does the EOI reduce suicide-related behaviors?
• Does the EOI increase outpatient treatment attendance?
• Is the EOI acceptable and feasible?
• Can the EOI be delivered with fidelity by Samaritans?

Participants will be randomized to the EOI plus care as usual or care as usual alone. Participants in the EOI plus care as usual group will:

• Receive outreach (by call or text) at a planned time once per week for the next 12 weeks. During these conversations, Samaritans staff will ask participants questions about their suicidal thoughts and behaviors, develop and review a list of coping skills to use if they have suicidal thoughts, and discuss plans for receiving mental health care.
• Receive caring messages from Samaritans staff at least once per week.
• Receive standard care that hospitals give for patients who present with suicidal thoughts.
• Be asked to complete monthly self-report questionnaires.

For care as usual alone, participants will:

• Receive standard care that hospitals give for patients who present with suicidal thoughts.
• Be asked to complete monthly self-report questionnaires.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Suicidal Ideation; Suicide, Attempted; Suicide
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Enhanced Outreach Intervention (EOI) plus Care as Usual (CAU); Other: Care as Usual (CAU)

Detailed Description

The period after discharge from an emergency department (ED) is a critical time of increased risk for suicide and related behavior (SRB). Brief "caring contact" interventions that provide follow-up and support after a healthcare visit have been shown to reduce SRB and are now recommended best practices for suicide prevention in healthcare systems. However, system- and individual-level barriers to widespread implementation exist. For example, deployment of brief contact interventions requires dedicated resources and staffing within already overburdened healthcare settings, and even single-session interventions require robust provider training and ongoing oversight for successful implementation.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate a recently developed Enhanced Outreach Intervention (EOI) for post-ED discharge that combines multiple evidence-based suicide prevention components (e.g., safety planning, risk assessment, caring contacts, and care engagement) and is delivered through a partnership between a healthcare system (Mass General Brigham [MGB]) and a local crisis line organization (Samaritans of Boston). Combining multiple evidence-based interventions has the potential to increase effectiveness over usual practices, and partnering with a community organization vastly increases scalability.

Samaritans staff will undergo robust, multifaceted training on the EOI, and use standardized decision trees to guide EOI delivery. The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial (N=300) of the EOI plus care as usual versus care as usual alone after ED discharge to test effectiveness of the EOI and collect data on implementation-related factors. The investigators will also explore potential moderators of intervention effects, including age, sex, race/ethnicity, and predicted risk of suicide attempt at baseline.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 300
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Kate Bentley, PhD; Phone Number: 617-724-7741; Email: kbentley@mgh.harvard.edu
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Rebecca Fortgang, PhD; Email: RFORTGANG@mgh.harvard.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Currently a patient being treated and evaluated by psychiatry service in an MGB ED
2. Participants enrolled in another study (NCT05671133; PI Nock) conducted by the research team who fall into the top 50% of risk based on the suicide risk prediction algorithm used in that study
3. Able to read English
4. Ownership of a smartphone (iOS or Android) and consistent access to their smartphone following discharge from the current treatment unit or program; ability to be reliably contacted
5. Willing to provide contact information for collateral contact
6. Willing to share contact information and key clinical information with Samaritans of Boston
7. Consent to unencrypted text or email communications
8. Willing to provide social security number (SSN) or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) for study compensation

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Any factor that impairs an individual's ability to comprehend and effectively participate in informed consent, including the presence of gross cognitive impairment due to florid psychosis, intellectual disability, dementia, or acute intoxication
2. Presence of extremely agitated or violent behavior at the time of consent or enrollment

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Enhanced Outreach Intervention plus Care as Usual (CAU); Participants will receive the Enhanced Outreach Intervention (EOI) plus care as usual for 12 weeks after ED discharge.	Behavioral: Enhanced Outreach Intervention (EOI) plus Care as Usual (CAU); The EOI will contain four main components: safety planning, caring contacts, care engagement, and risk assessment. Outreach (via phone or text messaging) from Samaritans staff will be conducted every week of the 12 week intervention. Conversations will use a standardized phone script to (a) conduct a risk assessment, (b) develop and review a list of coping skills to use if the participant has suicidal thoughts, and (c) discuss plans for receiving mental health care. Samaritans staff will also send a caring text message or email at least once per week. Participants will also receive standard care that hospitals provide to patients who present with suicidal thoughts.
Other: Care as Usual (CAU); Participants will receive the standard care (i.e., CAU) that the hospital provides to patients who present with suicidal thoughts.	Other: Care as Usual (CAU); Participants will receive standard care that hospitals provide to patients who present with suicidal thoughts.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of Suicide Attempts	Whether or not a suicide attempt occurs during the 12-week intervention period will be captured by manual review of electronic health records and the Self-Injurious Thoughts & Behaviors Interview (SITBI).	4 weeks
Number of Suicide Attempts	Whether or not a suicide attempt occurs during the 12-week intervention period will be captured by manual review of electronic health records and the Self-Injurious Thoughts & Behaviors Interview (SITBI).	8 weeks
Number of Suicide Attempts	Whether or not a suicide attempt occurs during the 12-week intervention period will be captured by manual review of electronic health records and the Self-Injurious Thoughts & Behaviors Interview (SITBI).	12 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Depressive Symptoms	Depressive symptoms will be measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). The scale values ranges from 0 to 3. Higher total scores mean more severe symptoms.	Baseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks
Treatment Attendance	Treatment attendance during the 12-week intervention period will be captured by manual review of electronic health records and participant-reported outcome survey.	4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks
Intensity of Suicidal Ideation	The intensity of suicidal ideation will be measured using the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS). The scale values ranges from 0 to 2. Higher scores mean more intense suicidal ideation.	Baseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital
• Collaborators: National Institutes of Health (NIH); Samaritans of Boston
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD, Massachusetts General Hospital

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Milner AJ, Carter G, Pirkis J, Robinson J, Spittal MJ. Letters, green cards, telephone calls and postcards: systematic and meta-analytic review of brief contact interventions for reducing self-harm, suicide attempts and suicide. Br J Psychiatry. 2015 Mar;206(3):184-90. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.147819.
• Doupnik SK, Rudd B, Schmutte T, Worsley D, Bowden CF, McCarthy E, Eggan E, Bridge JA, Marcus SC. Association of Suicide Prevention Interventions With Subsequent Suicide Attempts, Linkage to Follow-up Care, and Depression Symptoms for Acute Care Settings: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry. 2020 Oct 1;77(10):1021-1030. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.1586.
• National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention: Transforming Health Systems Initiative Work Group. Recommended standard care for people with suicide risk: Making health care suicide safe. Education Development Center, Inc. Published online 2018.
• Office of the Surgeon General (OSG). The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Implement the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention [Internet]. Washington (DC): US Department of Health and Human Services; 2021-. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK592704/

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): June 1, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): November 1, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): November 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 11, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 27, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): May 1, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): January 27, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 26, 2026
• Last Verified: January 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Suicide; Suicidal Thoughts
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Self-Injurious Behavior; Behavior; Suicide; Suicidal Ideation; Suicide, Attempted
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2023P000611-B

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No