Introducing the suicide prevention trials database: A publicly available data repository of suicide prevention...

Healthcare, research, policy, and legislative stakeholders need timely, accurate, and detailed information on the effectiveness and potential harms of suicide prevention approaches. We created the Suicide Prevention Trials Database (SPTD) to provide a centralized, publicly accessible, detailed database of harmonized study-level suicide prevention clinical trial data.

We searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of suicide prevention published from 1980 to 2023. Over 300 data variables were extracted from each RCT.

We identified a total of 140 unique RCTs in 180 articles. Most of the included RCTs compared two treatment arms (92%), and the remainder compared three arms (88%). Nearly half of the RCTs reported on Behavioral Interventions (49%), followed by Care Management, Follow-up, or Monitoring (16%). Typically, the comparator condition was Treatment as Usual (53%). Interventions were most often delivered in person (61%) in an individual format (79%).

The SPTD provides efficient, accurate, up-to-date access to a comprehensive suicide prevention trials database, which can be utilized by a range of stakeholders. It can reduce the time required for high-quality systematic reviews and provides researchers, administrators, and funders with current data on the state of the literature.