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ViewAttendees 5

Symposia

Suicide and Self-Injury

Developing and Adapting Technological Interventions to Prevent Youth Suicide in Primary Care

1 - (SYM 34) Implementation of a Light-touch Prevention Program for Teens at Risk for Suicide

Friday, November 15, 2024
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Grand Ballroom F, Level 5, Downtown Marriott
Abstract Body

Suicide rates are on the rise and evidence-based prevention is often under-utilized in routine clinical care. Moreover, numerous barriers exist to accessing mental health services in traditional settings. As such, use of digital mental health tools is one promising avenue for providing mental health supports to youth, either as stand-alone interventions or bridges to other care. The Integrated Care to Help At Risk Teens (iCHART) intervention consists of a suite of mobile tools designed to meet this need: an enhanced mental health screener that assesses symptoms as well as barriers to accessing care and preferences for different types of mental health services, a safety planning app, and an automated text messaging platform that encourages engagement with the safety planning app and providers.

The iCHART intervention is being tested as part of the ETUDES Center, a large research collaboration between the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pittsburgh, which focuses on developing and testing novel interventions to prevent suicide among adolescents. To date, the iCHART signature randomized control trial has enrolled 141 teens between the ages of 12-18.

Initial use data from the first 56 teens randomized to receive iCHART (vs. services as usual) revealed inconsistent completion of the enhanced mental health screener and variable uptake of the safety planning app. Specifically, 80.4% of onboarded teens engaged with the app at least one time. However, daily mood ratings occurred 0-105 times post-onboarding (M=14.53, SD=21.76; median=6; mode=1). Approximately half (53.6%) of the teens accessed an app-based coping activity (range: 1-34 times; M=5.58, SD=8.72; median=2; mode=0), and 11 teens personalized the app by adding or updating content (range: 1-34 times; M=2.16, SD=5.50; median=0; mode=0). Thus, the intervention underwent adaptation to enhance engagement with the iCHART tools.

The presentation will detail the enhancements made and compare the pre-adaptation use data to post-adaptation use data for all iCHART tools. Findings will inform the impact that the adaptations had on intervention utilization. We also aim to discuss qualitative feedback from adolescents regarding the updated iCHART package. Results can serve as a practical example of mid-intervention trial adaptations. Moreover, results can shed light on key factors to consider when maximizing engagement with digital mental health tools.