|
 Soldiers in the study had all received behavioral health services
for considering or attempting suicide in the past, and all were on
active duty, in the Reserve or in the National Guard. They all
received standard treatments like medication or psychotherapy as
needed; half of the 650 participants were also randomly assigned to
received occasional texts with messages like "hope you're having a
good day."
Over the course of a year, people who received these texts were 44
percent less likely to experience suicidal thoughts and 48 percent
less likely to attempt suicide than those who didn't get the
messages.
"Social disconnection is one of the strongest and most established
risk factors for suicide," said study co-author Amanda Kerbrat, a
psychiatry and behavioral health researcher at the University of
Washington in Seattle.
"This approach responds to this need in a way that is both effective
and feasible," Kerbrat said by email.
The texting initiative, called Caring Contacts, involved a series of
11 text messages sent on day 1, at week 1, and then monthly as well
as on participants' birthdays. This schedule didn't vary based on
whether people exhibited suicidal behavior, and the messages were
not designed to require any reply.
"We are not waiting for them to reach out to health care - Caring
Contacts thus offers support that is not contingent on what the
recipient does or does not do," Kerbrat said. "Clinicians were often
just engaging in a brief, positive exchange about how a service
member's day was going."
Over the year, 21 of 233 service members who received texts and
completed the study attempted suicide, as did 34 of the 228 people
who only got standard care.
However, there was no meaningful difference between the groups in
how often participants were hospitalized, required medical
evacuations or how likely people were to report current suicidal
thoughts in interviews at 6 and 12 months.
[to top of second column] |
One limitation of the study is that only 70 percent of participants
stuck with it through the final assessments, researchers note in
JAMA Psychiatry. The study was also limited to service members who
had discussed suicide with a clinician, and results might be
different for military personnel who don't seek help for suicidal
thoughts, the study authors point out.
Because the total number of suicide attempts was low, it is hard to
draw broad conclusions about how effective texts may have been at
reducing these episodes, they add.
It's also possible that the study had mixed results because the
texts didn't make a meaningful difference in how socially connected
service members felt, Dr. Murray Stein of the University of
California, San Diego and colleagues write in an accompanying
editorial.
"One wonders if active-duty military personnel and reservists, who
are embedded in a rich social milieu that, if nothing else, is
hardly isolating, are likely to have their perceptions of
belongingness altered by 11 text messages over a year," Stein and
his coauthors write.
Moreover, restricting access to firearms has been found in previous
research to be among the most effective tools for reducing deaths by
suicide, they note.
Still, the results add to evidence suggesting that suicide
prevention isn't one-size-fits-all, said Dr. Charles Hoge, a
psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver
Spring, Maryland, who wrote a separate editorial accompanying the
study.
"The results are not necessarily surprising, but they highlight the
complexity of the problem, limited expectations of any single
intervention, and the importance of considering multi-modal
strategies," Hoge said by email.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2SgmCvg , https://bit.ly/2ttVOhb and https://bit.ly/2XeJBus
JAMA Psychiatry, online February 13, 2019.
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
