Mitigating suicide risk with a single session of virtually-delivered psychotherapy: An open-label trial of Brief Skills for Safer Living

Abstract

Background

Suicide is a global challenge and suicide rates have not significantly decreased. The COVID-19 pandemic also increased suicide risk and intensified pre-existing lack of access to mental health services. To address this issue, “Brief Skills for Safer Living” (Brief-SfSL) was developed, a single-session individual psychotherapy intervention with the potential to make it easier to access care and shorten the time to access intervention. Derived from the original success of the SfSL 20-week group therapy, Brief-SfSL helps individuals understand their suicidal thoughts, build skills to manage these thoughts, and stay safer during crises. This national study tested the effectiveness of remote Brief-SfSL on suicidal ideation over 12 weeks, as well as feasibility and acceptability.

Methods

This was a single-arm trial of virtually-delivered Brief-SfSL in 77 adults with suicidal ideation across Canada with follow-up at 1, 4 and 12 weeks. The primary outcome was the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation, and secondary measures assessed depression, anxiety, social connectedness, and life functioning.

Results

The results demonstrated that Brief-SfSL is an effective, feasible, acceptable, and safe intervention for suicide risk.

Conclusions

These data support the utility of Brief-SfSL as a single-session targeted suicide intervention that can increase accessibility due to the flexibility in delivery format and minimal resources required. They also underscore that remote suicide intervention can be conducted with a suicide safety protocol in place. Future studies will investigate Brief-SfSL in a randomized controlled trial and the long-term impact of Brief-SfSL on suicide risk, healthcare system utilization, and health economics.