Our Service Members are at a historically high risk for suicide, with suicide deaths outnumbering combat deaths in recent years and the risk of dying by suicide greater among active duty military men than that of the general population. Identifying and intervening with suicidal Service Members is essential to preventing suicide, but many do not utilize available behavioral health outpatient care and when they do, they often drop out of care early. Kate Comtois, PhD, MPH, Richard Ries, MD, and Michael McDonell, PhD along with COL Jay Earles, PsyD (Fort Bragg Site PI) co-led a recent study funded by the Military Suicide Research Consortium to test the effectiveness of caring text messages for suicidal active duty Marines and Soldiers. UW staff support included Amanda Kerbrat, MSW, LICSW, Bryan Stiles, and Amber Hassan.

Since 1976, caring contacts have been shown to be brief, simple, effective interventions for suicide, whether via letter, phone, email or text. Text messaging is increasingly seen as an important platform for caring contacts since most mobile phone users keep their phones with them at all times. The researchers assembled a sample of 657 suicidal Marines and Soldiers and separated them into two randomized treatment groups; those receiving Continuity Contact via Texts (CCVT) intervention in addition to treatment as usual and those just receiving treatment as usual. Active duty personnel in the CCVT group were sent 11 caring text messages over a 12 month period by a Continuity Clinician who developed a relationship with the patient as part of an initial interview.

The study found that those who were in the CCVT group were 42% less likely to have suicidal thoughts and 45% less likely to have made a suicide attempt than those in the treatment as usual group. Initial results show that CCVT combined with other treatment is a simple, low-cost, and effective way of reducing suicide within active duty military. The team is submitting their results for publication shortly.