Development of an interactive, web-based drinking to cope intervention and tools to assess coping skill utilization

This project will develop and test an interactive web-based intervention with text-message reminders for young adults who drink to cope with negative affect. The intervention will include interactive modules on CBT coping skills, assignments to practice the skills, text-message reminders, and weekly assessments on coping skill utilization and barriers to use. A total of 120 […]

Impact of the Preventing Addiction-Related Suicide (PARS) Intervention on patients who receive community-based addiction treatment

Persons with substance use disorders are 5-10 times more likely to die by suicide than the general public. Recognizing this, Rick Ries, MD, Katherine (Kate) Comtois, PhD, MPH, and the UW Center for Suicide Prevention and Recovery (CSPAR) staff developed the first and only suicide prevention intervention successfully developed with and tested in community addiction treatment centers. The primary […]

Understanding the support needs of gender expansive youth

Approximately 35% of youth who identified as transgender report having attempted suicide in the past 12 months. Despite this high risk, few preventive interventions have been developed specifically to address the unique needs of this group who experience high rates of marginalization, victimization and social isolation based on their gender identities. This study will use […]


Suicide risk screening in acute and intensive care at a Level 1 Trauma Center

Patients hospitalized for medical, surgical, or traumatic injury reasons at Harborview Medical Center are universally screened for suicide risk. The present research will advance knowledge about the practices occurring at this large healthcare institution serving the public and social safety net population and set the groundwork necessary for conducting future research designed to improve services […]

Using routine alcohol screening measures to identify 1-year risk of suicidal ideation, intent, and planning within a large primary care system in Washington

This study will use a large population-based primary care sample in Washington state to understand how heavy alcohol use and alcohol use disorder symptoms contribute to suicidal thoughts. This study will allow examination of how different levels of alcohol use can predict short term risk of suicidality and allow us to better identify and support […]

Consumer perspectives of online & in-person suicide prevention strategies

This study will explore which interventions people with lived experience of suicide find acceptable (e.g., different types of in-person and telehealth care, web-based, text message, app, etc.), who should be the agent to deliver the intervention, and what concerns would they have in having social media and search data used for risk identification and then […]


Pathways from Chronic Prescription Opioid Use to New Onset Mood Disorder

The proposed research addresses three important objectives including: 1) Can OUD screening be effectively incorporated into primary care mental health screening protocols?; 2) Does implementing Collaborative Care for OUD and mental health disorders improve outcomes?; 3) What implementation strategies are effective at sustaining Collaborative Care programs that concurrently manage mental health disorders and OUD?

Bipolar disorder measures in clinical care

The goals of this project are to 1) determine which validated bipolar disorder patient-reported symptom measure is most acceptable and helpful to patients and clinicians in clinical care, 2) demonstrate that the preferred measure can be used to monitor outcomes with high fidelity in routine care, and 3) assess the feasibility of comparing effectiveness of […]