3 - (SYM 8) Impact of a Brief, Outpatient Crisis Care Clinic for Reducing Youth Suicide Risk

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 10–24-year-olds in the United States, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors are prevalent and increase risk of death by suicide. Suicidal youth are frequently referred to hospital Emergency Departments (EDs). However, EDs are often poorly equipped to manage youth mental health.

Thus, there is a need for outpatient treatment models that emphasize crisis stabilization and patient safety while also providing assistance with connecting youth and families to ongoing care. The current study examines data from the Behavioral Health Crisis Care Clinic (CCC), a brief, outpatient crisis stabilization service that includes care connection support in addition to delivering active intervention using the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) framework for both youths presenting in suicidal crisis and their caregiver(s). Intervention impact was assessed by examining percent of youth who completed the intervention that achieved suicide risk reduction defined a priori using CAMS response criteria.

Participants included 116 youth who attended 4 or more sessions (mean = 4.37 sessions; sd = 1.07; youth ages 10-20; 64.7% female; 75.9% Caucasian), and exhibited past-week suicidal ideation or behavior, and their caregivers. We examined: percent of youth who had at least three consecutive sessions of self-reported current overall suicide risk < 3 (on a scale from 1 “Extremely low risk (will not kill self)” to 5 “Extremely high risk (will kill self)”); denial of past week suicidal behavior; effective management of any past week suicidal thoughts/feelings; and youth who met all CAMS defined suicide risk response criteria (at least 3 consecutive sessions of no/low self-reported suicide risk (< 3), denial of past week suicidal behavior, and effective management of any past week suicidal thoughts/feelings).
Preliminary results using multiple imputation for missing data demonstrate that 91 (78.4%) youth had 3 consecutive sessions of no/low suicide risk, 97 (83.6%) reported effectively managing past week suicidal ideation during the intervention, and 101 (93.5%) denied any suicidal behaviors during the intervention, although 21 (19.6%) endorsed engaging in non-suicidal self-injury at some point during the intervention. Lastly, 77 (66.4%) youth who completed the intervention reached CAMS response criteria, indicating significant overall reduction in suicide risk. Together, results suggest promise for this type of brief, outpatient, co-treatment model for reducing youth suicide risk.