Current practices of suicide risk management protocols in research

Area of Science:

• Mental Health Research
• Clinical Psychology
• Public Health

Background:

• Participant safety is critical in mental health research involving potentially suicidal individuals.
• Suicide risk management (SRM) protocols are often required but poorly understood.
• These protocols may inform clinical suicide risk management practices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify common practices in suicide risk management (SRM) protocols used by mental health intervention researchers.
• To establish a framework for evaluating the content and consistency of SRM protocols.

Main Methods:

• Systematic descriptive analysis of 21 written SRM protocols from NIMH-funded studies.
• Development of a checklist of operationally significant safety tasks based on qualitative methodology.
• Application of the checklist to assess task variability across protocols.

Main Results:

• Analysis of 21 SRM protocols revealed three main categories: overview, entry/exit, and process.
• Nineteen specific safety tasks were identified, with frequencies ranging from 7% to 95% across protocols.
• Significant variability in the implementation of patient safety tasks was observed.

Conclusions:

• A developed SRM checklist offers a framework for comparing and developing suicide risk management protocols.
• Standardized guidelines and methodologies are crucial for advancing suicide prevention strategies.
• Further research is needed to ascertain the impact of SRM protocols on participant safety.