Brief Interventions in Suicide Prevention across the Continuum of Care

Suicide prevention has become a global priority, inspiring exciting growth in suicide prevention research. Much of this research is based on the public health model of prevention, which requires interventions that can be implemented across a broad range of universal, selected, and indicated populations. The need to address risk across these various groups has resulted in the development of a broad range of brief interventions that target various outcomes including treatment engagement, psychological and physical problems related to suicide, means-safety, suicidal ideation, and risk for non-fatal and fatal attempts. These brief interventions have been both tested and disseminated across a broad range of populations. Despite their broad applicability, brief interventions are narrow in scope, and strategic planning is needed to optimize their clinical and scientific impact.

Our goal is to explore the cutting edge of brief intervention research in suicide prevention and to integrate the global literature. Based in the public health model of prevention, we are targeting brief intervention research across the range of universal, selected, and indicated populations. We are targeting a wide range of studies that include intervention research, moderation and mediation studies, implementation and dissemination research, observational studies of implemented interventions, meta-analyses, and review articles. Populations may range from children and their parents, adolescents, adults, older adults, couples and families, and peers. We intend to integrate the articles with the extent literature to identify lessons learned from brief suicide prevention research, the pros and cons of the brief intervention approach, and how this domain of suicide prevention research should progress for greatest clinical and scientific impact.

We specifically encourage submission on the following topics:

• Efficacy/effectiveness trials of brief interventions
• Research identifying populations for which brief interventions are efficacious/effective, or inefficacious/ineffective
• Studies identifying key mechanisms whereby a brief intervention reduces a suicide-related outcome
• Studies evaluating the cost-effectiveness of brief interventions
• Studies evaluating the relationship between dose or duration and efficacy/effectiveness of brief interventions
• Implementation or dissemination studies across healthcare systems or hospitals
• Meta-analyses of brief interventions
• Systematic and integrative review articles of brief interventions targeting universal, indicated, selected populations, or suicide-related outcomes