Development and Pilot Testing of the Mobile Application to Prevent Suicide (MAPS)

Although there are empirically supported interventions for suicidal ideation and behavior, suicide rates in the United States continue to increase. Suicide risk is particularly elevated during transitions from acute care. One potential reason for this is that existing suicide interventions do not match the dynamic and contextualized nature of suicide risk. The goal of this study was to examine feasibility, acceptability, and pilot testing of the Mobile Application to Prevent Suicide (MAPS), a novel ecological momentary intervention designed to reduce suicidal ideation and behavior.

We conducted two open trials in which participants used MAPS for 28 days during transitions from acute care: 10 adult psychiatric inpatients (Study 1) and 10 young adults in a partial hospitalization program (Study 2).

Results demonstrated that MAPS was feasible to implement and acceptable to psychiatric patients with high risk for suicide. Descriptive analyses suggested that during their use of MAPS, most participants experienced either decreases or no change in suicidal ideation severity, and there was an upward observable trend in outpatient treatment utilization.

Results of these open trials support further evaluation of MAPS as an adjunctive intervention for suicide prevention during transitions in care.

ClinicalTrials.Gov identifiers NCT05180383 and NCT05180331.