The Impact of Routine Follow-up Contacts After a Pediatric ED Visit for Youth With Suicide Risk

The Impact of Routine Follow-up Contacts After a Pediatric ED Visit for Youth With Suicide Risk: a Randomized Controlled Trial

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a social work led follow up program helps caregivers of youths with suicide risk access mental health resources.

Primary aims include:

1. To formalize a mental health follow up protocol that assists youths with engagement of mental health services after a hospital visit.
2. To evaluate and standardize the optimal timing for the follow up phone calls.
3. To assess the proportion of patients with suicide risk who connect with community mental health care within a month after a pediatric emergency department (ED) visit at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
4. To assess the proportion of patients with suicide risk who have repeat ED visits within 3 and 6 months.

The primary outcome of interest is the proportion of youths referred to a community provider who successfully connect to community mental health resources 5 to 10 business days after an ED visit. The secondary outcome will involve repeat ED visits within 3 and 6 months.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Suicidal Ideation
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Follow up call

Detailed Description

The month following an ED discharge is a high-risk period for suicide for patients recovering from a suicide attempt and/or experiencing suicidal ideation, making referrals and follow up critically important. Very few hospital systems, if any, have been able to implement policies and practices that ensure patients at risk for suicide are getting the follow up care they need. Patient navigator interventions have demonstrated success in improving health outcomes across a range of conditions including mental health, and moreover, they have been effective in providing practical support and encouragement to aid patients in accessing community mental health services. Navigators are trained and supervised frontline public health personnel who are hired from the same communities as patients and aid patients in accessing health care and social services. They have shared experiences and nuanced understanding of the communities they serve to help facilitate developing rapport and trust with families, which can help mitigate health care inequities. To the investigator's knowledge, there are no published studies that have evaluated the implementation of patient navigators in the pediatric ED to help caregivers of suicidal youths access community mental health resources after an ED visit.

In the pediatric ED at Johns Hopkins, an ad hoc clinical initiative led by social work (SW) was started in September 2022 with efforts focused on following up with caregivers of patients with mental health emergencies who are discharged from the hospital. SW staff have been calling caregivers a few days after an ED visit or hospitalization to assist with barriers such as challenges in connecting with community mental health resources and accessing prescribed medications.

For this research, this follow up program will be standardized and consistent data collection will be implemented. A randomized controlled trial will be conducted to evaluate the efficacy of this intervention. If the results are promising, evaluation of this program would provide preliminary data for a future study for implementation of a patient navigation program to improve mental health service engagement for youths with suicide risk who are discharged from the pediatric ED.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 401
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Maryland
    • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21287
      • Johns Hopkins Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

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

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients ages 8 to 21 years old;
• Who present to the emergency department (ED) and are assessed with suicide risk;
• Who are discharged from the Johns Hopkins Hospital (Pediatric inpatient psychiatric unit, Pediatric Day Hospital, or Pediatric ED) with a mental health referral

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients who were directly transferred to the inpatient psychiatry unit or the Day Hospital from an outside hospital, bypassing the hospital's ED
• Direct admissions, bypassing the hospital's ED

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Follow up call within 5 days	Behavioral: Follow up call; As part of the standard of care, caregivers of youths who present to the hospital with suicidal risk receive a follow up call approximately 5-10 business days after the hospital discharge to assist them with any challenges they may encounter in accessing mental health care, including medication access. The intervention group will receive a call 5 days after discharge. The non-intervention group will receive a call 10 days after discharge.
No Intervention: Follow up call within 10 days

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Proportion of youths accessing community mental health resources	The primary outcome of interest is the proportion of youths referred to a community provider who successfully connect to community mental health resources 5 to 10 business days after an ED visit.	From enrollment up to 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Emergency department revisits	The secondary outcome will involve repeat ED visits within 3 and 6 months.	From enrollment up to 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Johns Hopkins University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Hanae Fujii-Rios, MD MPH, Johns Hopkins University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 20, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 20, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): May 20, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 25, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 26, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): September 27, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 22, 2025
• Last Verified: July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Suicidal risk; Suicidal thoughts; Suicidal behaviors
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Self-Injurious Behavior; Suicide; Suicidal Ideation
• Other Study ID Numbers: IRB00396477

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