A Pilot Evaluation of a Digital Peer Support Intervention for Suicidal Adolescents (SWEEP)

April 14, 2026 updated by: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Suicide risk has increased among youth in underserved communities, where access to mental healthcare is limited. To address this need, the investigator team plans to evaluate the preliminary efficacy of a brief, low-cost, culturally responsive digital intervention for ethnically diverse youth at risk for suicide in The Bronx, New York. In collaboration with community stakeholders, suicide recovery narratives, featuring adolescents' experiences related to recovery from suicidal thoughts will be developed. A smartphone ecological momentary assessment (EMA) app will be used to evaluate whether a curriculum of these narratives provides anti-suicidal benefits to at-risk adolescents.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This is a single-arm investigation of a novel suicide prevention intervention, called "Supporting Wellbeing with Everyday Experiences of Peers" (SWEEP). In a preliminary phase (Phase 1) of the study, suicide recovery narratives: short first-person stories about lived experience with and recovery from Bronx Adolescents will be collected. The investigator team will then evaluate evaluate the anti-suicidal benefits of this intervention in a single-arm trial. In a subsequent phase (Phase 2), adolescent participants (n=46) will be provided with the SWEEP intervention, which involves reading or listening to one suicide recovery narrative each day during the 14-day trial. Six of the 46 participants will be adolescents, with recent suicidal thoughts or depression, who are currently receiving mental healthcare in Montefiore's Outpatient Psychiatry Department, rather than those on the waitlist to receive these services. All six participants will then complete a post-intervention qualitative interview to inform potential changes to intervention procedures. During this second phase, suicide recovery narratives will be provided, in audio and text formats, via a smartphone app. That same smartphone app will also collect real-time (ecological momentary) assessments of suicidal thoughts, as well as secondary and additional outcomes, five times per day. The investigator team will evaluate whether participants experience reductions in the intensity of suicidal thoughts over the course of the 14-day trial. During Phase 3, participants will be recruited to a control condition (n=15) and a treatment condition (n=30). Those in the Phase 3 treatment condition will receive the same intervention (1 SWEEP narrative per day for 14 days + 3x/day EMA) as those in Phase 2. Those in the Control condition will receive 3x/day EMA only.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

46

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • The Bronx, New York, United States, 10467
        • Recruiting
        • Montefiore Health System

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • past-month history of suicidal thoughts
  • past-month history of Major depressive disorder
  • possession of apple or android smartphone with data plan

Exclusion Criteria:

  • inability to read/write in English
  • Active mania
  • Active psychosis
  • Autism spectrum disorder

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention
This is a single-arm study. All participants will be allocated to the intervention arm, in which they will receive the digital narrative therapy.
Behavioral: Supporting Wellbeing with Everyday Experiences of Peers (SWEEP)
Each day during a 14-day trial period, participants will receive one narrative featuring lived experience with and recovery from suicidal thoughts and behaviors. These narratives will be presented in audio and text format via a smartphone app. Participants will also complete self-report surveys assessing study outcomes using the same smartphone app five times per day.
Other Names:
  • SWEEP

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Suicidal Thoughts
Time Frame: 5 times per day during 14-day trial
Participants will self-report their current subjective intensity of suicidal thoughts using an 11-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating more intense suicidal thoughts.
5 times per day during 14-day trial

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Suicidal Urge Resistance
Time Frame: 5 times per day during 14-day trial
Participants will self-report the strength of their current ability to resist suicidal urges using an 11-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater ability to resist suicidal urges.
5 times per day during 14-day trial
Social Connectedness
Time Frame: 5 times per day during 14-day trial
Participants will self-report their current feelings of being connected to other people using an 11-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating feeling more being connected to other people.
5 times per day during 14-day trial
Optimism
Time Frame: 5 times per day during 14-day trial
Participants will self-report their current of feelings of optimism about the future using an 11-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater optimism.
5 times per day during 14-day trial
Social Support
Time Frame: 5 times per day during 14-day trial
Participants will self-report their current perception of the availability of emotional support from others using an 11-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating the perception greater availability of emotional support from others.
5 times per day during 14-day trial
Intervention Acceptability
Time Frame: Study conclusion (at the end of the 14-day trial)
Participants will self-report their current perception of acceptability of the SWEEP intervention across three items. Participants will rate the usefulness of receiving the narratives using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating that the narratives were more useful. Participants will rate the difficulty of reading or listening to the narratives each day using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating that the narratives were more difficult to read or listen to. This item will be reverse coded. Participants will rate how willing they are to recommend the narratives to their peers using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater willingness to recommend the narratives. Each of these items will be evaluated in isolation, as well as in aggregate using both summation and an arithmetic mean score.
Study conclusion (at the end of the 14-day trial)

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Emotions
Time Frame: 5 times per day during 14-day trial
Participants will self-report the current intensity of 10 emotions: excited, guilty, scared, proud, irritated, ashamed, inspired, nervous, determined, angry. Each emotion will be rated on an 11-point Likert-type scale with higher scores indicating more intense emotion. Each of these items will be evaluated in isolation, as well as in aggregate using arithmetic mean. For aggregating an overall emotion score, the positive emotions excited, proud, inspired, and determined will be reverse-scored to provide an aggregate rating of negative emotion.
5 times per day during 14-day trial
Treatment Readiness
Time Frame: Baseline (prior to starting the 14-day trail) and study conclusion (at the end of the 14-day trial)
Participants will self-report their current readiness for mental health treatment across 4 items. Participants will rate their motivation for beginning regular mental health services using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater readiness to begin regular services. Participants will rate their anxiety about discussing personal difficulties with a mental health professional using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater anxiety. This item will be reverse coded. Participants will rate how confident they feel that regular mental health services will be helpful using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater confidence. Participants will rate how necessary they feel that regular mental health services are for them using a 7-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater feelings of necessity. Each item will be evaluated in isolation and in aggregate using both summation and arithmetic mean score.
Baseline (prior to starting the 14-day trail) and study conclusion (at the end of the 14-day trial)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Collaborators

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Yeshiva University
Ilumivu

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Peter J Franz, Ph.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

April 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

October 1, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

October 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 1, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 1, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

April 5, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 15, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 14, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2023-15217

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

IPD Plan Description

The research team will consider requests to share specific data with qualified research teams upon request

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Suicide

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Argentina

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe