This project outlines a comprehensive two-year initiative aimed at enhancing suicide care services in primary care settings. The project addresses a critical gap in the continuum of care by providing interim crisis support for at-risk patients who are waiting to be connected to specialty mental health. The main objectives of this project are to develop two innovative interventions intended to be delivered in a primary care setting: an adapted caring contacts protocol and a system to provide short-term, centralized remote monitoring of patient’s suicide risk. In designing these interventions, we intend to leverage technology such as digital/online platforms and remote monitoring systems that will support asynchronous patient check-ins. Finding innovative ways to offer support to patients in primary care settings where there is limited clinician time and typically an even more limited behavioral health workforce is imperative to creating a sustainable program. Therefore, our proposal intends to maximize the use of technology and focuses on self-guided and/or automated approaches.
This project uses a co-design approach to develop these interventions, where we will elicit input directly from patients and caregivers on the acceptability, feasibility, and appropriateness of these interventions. We hope this project will improve the timely support and management of suicide risk among primary care patients, ultimately enhancing services in outpatient settings while supporting the Least Restrictive Environment Framework, to enhance patient outcomes, reduce unnecessary referrals to overburdened emergency departments, and promote the overall well-being of patients and their families.
This project aims to partner with rural, urban, and suburban pediatric primary care practices in Western Washington to improve access and effectiveness of suicide prevention programs through adapting the SAFETY-A intervention for use in primary care settings. This project has the following aims: (1) assess needs of primary care staff, patients, and parents/caregivers for suicide prevention services in primary care, (2) iteratively design and refine a SAFETY-A based suicide prevention model of care prototype for primary care, (3) Pilot test the model of care, compared to treatment as usual, with 3 primary care clinics in rural, urban, and suburban settings.
Suicide is a leading cause of death among 10-to-24-year-olds. Primary Care (PC) often serves as a trusted resource for adolescents and young adults (AYA) and their families; and routine wellness visits provide important opportunities for early detection of suicide risk. Importantly, nearly half of those who die by suicide contact their PC clinic within one month prior to suicide. Unfortunately, suicide prevention resources for PC are limited, with a particular gap in short-term risk management and intervention services for lower risk patients and patients with STB who are waiting to be connected to specialty mental health care. Furthermore, parents/caregivers (hereafter referred to as parents) represent a key protective factor for suicidal AYA. Yet, few interventions have been developed to leverage parent support and increase parental self-efficacy to prevent AYA suicide. The current project partners with a digital mental health app, iKinnect, to adapt it for use in PC. iKinnect is designed to improve parent and AYA communication and parental selfefficacy to prevent risk behaviors, including suicide behaviors. The tool uses a parent and AYA paired interface and was originally designed for implementation with high-risk youth involved in the juvenile justice system. Intervention components include parent and AYA content including safety planning, skills for emotion management, parent coaching on lethal means restriction, expectation and goal setting, earning/providing rewards and praise, and modeling videos for parents. While promising, the program has yet to be tested with AYA presenting with suicide risk in PC.
Approximately 20-25% of primary care patients have unhealthy alcohol use, which can have significant impacts on mental health. Screening for unhealthy alcohol use within primary care settings is increasingly used for point-in-time identification of people who could benefit from brief advice or brief interventions. My project will use a large, longitudinal, real-world dataset consisting of electronic health record (EHR) and insurance claims records to test whether longitudinal changes in alcohol screening scores completed by primary care patients as part of routine care are associated with changes in one-year risk for psychiatric acute care utilization (i.e., emergency department visit or hospital encounters primarily for a mental health condition).
This PTSD-focused methods-development EEG project aims to develop new tools for a) predicting PTSD treatment response, b) understanding the underlying biological process, and c) supporting the development of new treatments for PSTD. We are using an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm to develop non-invasive, easily implemented in clinic biomarker to provide useful information about the neurobiology of PTSD. The specific goals are to 1) collect ERP data within a veteran population before and after treatment with methylphenidate, 2) design data analysis methods that maximize available data, and 3) add to ongoing effort of translating technological advancements for PTSD research.
This study will examine the efficacy of the Helping Educational Leaders Mobilize Evidence (HELM) implementation strategy for promoting building-level implementation leadership, implementation climate, and high-fidelity delivery of evidence-based practices. This study tests whether HELM improves outcomes when used in conjunction with Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), an evidence-based practice. The researchers will compare the effects of PBIS implemented with usual supports and PBIS implemented with HELM. They will also explore what for whom, under what conditions, how equitably, and through which processes HELM works to improve student academic outcomes, as well as its cost-effectiveness.
The NIDA Clinical Trials Network (CTN) is a means by which medical and specialty treatment providers, treatment researchers, participating patients, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse cooperatively develop, validate, refine, and deliver new treatment options to patients. The Network consists of 16 regional Nodes, including the Pacific Northwest Node located at the UW Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute.
The present study seeks to significantly expand our understanding of alcohol and cannabis co-use behaviors in the context of young adult romantic relationships through collecting daily dyadic quantitative data and qualitative interviews, and using this information to develop and pilot an integrated brief intervention to decrease alcohol and cannabis misuse and increase healthy relationships skills among this understudied, high-risk group.
