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RESEARCH WEEKLY: September Research Roundup, Suicide Prevention Month
By Morré Taylor
(September 28, 2022) Research Roundup is a monthly public service of the Office of Research and Public Affairs. Each edition describes a striking new data point about severe mental illness and summarizes recently published research reports or developments.
This month’s roundup is in honor of Suicide Prevention Month.
DATAPOINT OF THE MONTH
988 has resulted in a 45% increase in call, chat and text message volume.
A preliminary report from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services highlighting the effectiveness of the 988 Suicide Crisis Lifeline (which launched in July 2022) found a 45% increase in service use compared to August 2021. Only one month after the launch of 988 calls have increased from 165,000 last August, when 1-800-273-8255 was the primary service number, to 300,000 this August. There has also been a 72% decrease in service response time since the implementation of 988.
These findings suggest that 988 is off to a successful start and has a lot of potential to increase the general public’s engagement with mental health counselors.
RESEARCH OF THE MONTH
Hallucinations and depression among adults experiencing psychosis are strong predictors of suicidal ideation.
Suicide is a major concern for individuals experiencing psychosis. Research investigating the relationship between psychosis symptoms and suicidal ideation or suicide planning among a sample of 712 adults in psychiatric emergency care found that the presence of certain psychosis symptoms can worsen suicidal thoughts. For example, patients were, on average, twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts and a suicide plan while experiencing hallucinations— a common symptom of psychosis.
Patients were also eight times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and three times more like to have a suicide plan when depression was present. These findings highlight the importance of including symptom evaluations in suicide risk assessments among patients with psychosis.
Bornheimer, L. A., et al. (2021). Relationships between hallucinations, delusions, depression, suicide ideation and plan among adults presenting with psychosis in psychiatric emergency care. Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches.
Cognition and depression are associated with suicide risk among individuals with first episode psychosis.
The risk of suicide is typically higher among individuals experiencing first-episode psychosis. A recent study published in Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal investigated whether cognition is associated with suicide risk for people experiencing FEP. In this study, 65 participants completed examinations that measured suicide risk, depression and cognition at the start of treatment and again 6-months into treatment.
In the initial measure of suicide risk, researchers found that greater cognitive ability was associated with an increased risk for suicide. This association, however, is relatively small as strong verbal learning skills were the only area of cognition that was associated with suicide risk. The study also found that changes depressive symptoms were the strongest predictor of suicide risk 6-months into treatment as opposed to changes in verbal cognitive ability.
Wastler, H. M., et al. (2022). Cognition and suicide risk among individuals with first-episode psychosis: A 6-month follow-up. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal.
Suicide risk assessment is more difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic and remote mental health services.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the utilization and delivery of mental health services, causing many services to be performed remotely. A recent study published in BMC Health Services Research explored mental health providers’ prospective on client and provider challenges in providing or receiving services with respect to remote engagement, suicide risk assessment and overall treatment of psychosis symptoms.
Data was collected from 12 mental health providers in the community mental health setting who completed a questionnaire about the aforementioned challenges. Results showed that 78% of mental health providers experienced challenges with engaging remotely with clients and 89% experienced difficulty treating symptoms of psychosis. Of the seven who engaged in remote suicide assessment, 57% experienced significant difficulty assessing suicide remotely. These findings bring light to the areas of remote mental health services that need to be improved to ensure that the quality of remote mental health services is up to par with in-person services.
Bornheimer, L. A., et al. (2022). Mental health provider perspectives of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on service delivery: A focus on challenges in remote engagement, suicide risk assessment and treatment of psychosis. BMC Health Services Research.
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