Developing and Testing a Brief, Personalized Intervention for Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors

Suicide is a public health emergency: an estimated 45,979 people in the United States died by suicide in 2020, and approximately 20% of U.S. youth report having seriously contemplated suicide in the past year. Most interventions for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) are developed and tested using group-level (nomothetic) approaches, which assume that all individuals experience suicidal ideation for similar reasons and respond similarly to treatment. However, individuals at high risk for suicide are highly heterogeneous, and prior idiographic (person-specific) research has shown substantial between-person variability in the daily associations between suicidal thoughts and coping strategies. This suggests that personalized interventions, tailored to an individual's unique pattern of risk and coping, may be more effective than one-size-fits-all approaches.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment for self-injurious behavior, but standard DBT is resource-intensive, creating barriers to access. Brief, adjunctive interventions show promise for reducing mental health symptoms and increasing engagement with more intensive services, but existing brief options (e.g., crisis lines) are underused. There is a need for a brief intervention that retains DBT's active ingredients while being personalized and more accessible than standard care.

This study will develop and pilot test PRECISE, a brief, personalized, EMA-informed adjunctive intervention for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, delivered via secure videoconferencing by trained coaches. PRECISE integrates components of DBT with idiographic statistical modeling of each participant's own ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data to identify individualized correlates of suicidal thoughts, which then guide functional analysis, safety planning, and targeted skills coaching across up to six sessions.

Aim 1 (Months 1-12): Refine the SPRING intervention manual through expert advisory review and initial testing with 5 participants to evaluate feasibility and acceptability.

Aim 2 (Months 13-24): Conduct an open-label, non-randomized pilot trial in 30 participants to evaluate recruitment/retention feasibility, further refine the intervention, and preliminarily examine outcomes.

Eligible participants (ages 18-26, active suicidal ideation, English fluency) complete baseline assessments, then begin smartphone-based EMA surveys for the six-week intervention duration. Each session opens with a suicide risk assessment; at-risk participants complete a structured risk management protocol. Primary outcomes are change in negative emotion intensity and adaptive emotion regulation strategy use, analyzed via mixed-effects models. Secondary outcomes include suicidal ideation, coping self-efficacy, and implementation outcomes (adherence, dropout, satisfaction).

Inclusion criteria

Age 18-26 years Endorsement of active suicidal ideation on the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) (score >2, or past-month thoughts of killing self) English fluency Willingness to provide contact information for a key support person to be contacted as part of the study's risk and safety plan

Exclusion criteria

Unable to read English Diagnosis of a psychotic or severe thought disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder with psychotic features)