Integrated Suicide Supports and Safety Planning for Youth

Overview

The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate an app to help keep teens and young adults with suicidal thoughts safe. The app includes a safety plan created by adolescents and healthcare providers, and videos to encourage supportive communication and skills for teens and young adults to stay safe. The main question it aims to answer is whether the use of an app can increase youth suicide-related coping for youth with suicidal ideation, parent/caregiver suicide prevention self-efficacy, and healthcare provider self-efficacy in suicide management. Researchers will compare usual care to usual care with the app. Participants, including adolescents, caregivers, and healthcare providers, will use the ISSP app (if assigned to that group) and view video content and complete three online surveys.

The current study aims to evaluate the Jaspr app relative to usual care among youth (ages 13-21 years) who indicate suicidal ideation in pediatric medical settings. The Jaspr app includes supported safety planning between the young person and the healthcare provider, as well as skills and support videos for youth and caregivers intended to increase coping and decrease distress with an opportunity to access these resources through an at home app. Adolescents, parents, and clinicians will participate in the project to assess the effectiveness of Jaspr augmenting usual care, compared to usual care alone. The study will use a pre-post design in which each setting begins with a control period and then transitions to the addition of Jaspr following healthcare provider training on use of the app. Participants and their parents/caregivers will receive study assessments at baseline, 1-month, and 2-month follow up timepoints, and healthcare providers complete a survey at baseline, and the end of each period (control and intervention). Study assessments with youth will ask about coping, suicidal ideation and severity, anxiety and depression, service utilization, functional impairment, access to lethal means, and acceptability of the app. Study assessments for parents/caregivers will ask about their self-efficacy in managing their youth's suicidality, acceptability of the videos/app, and service utilization for the youth. Healthcare providers will complete surveys assessing their self-efficacy in managing youth suicidality and feasibility of use of the app. Youth, their legal guardian, and healthcare providers each assent/consent to participate in the research procedures.