Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Dec 18, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 18, 2024 - Feb 12, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 27, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Digital Safety Plan Activation Reduces Subsequent Emergency Departments Visits Following an Initial Suicide Attempt
ABSTRACT
Background:
Suicide is a significant global public health concern. Individuals with suicidal behaviors often seek help in emergency departments (ED), making mental health providers critical in suicide prevention. Brief interventions, such as safety planning, are essential in these settings. However, there is a limited understanding of how mobile digital applications of safety planning could enhance the effectiveness of in-person care provided by mental health professionals while simultaneously reducing their workload.
Objective:
This study evaluated the effectiveness of a digital safety plan, delivered through the MEmind app, in reducing ED visits for suicide-related concerns.
Methods:
A one-year follow-up was conducted on individuals who presented to the ED after a suicidal crisis (n = 78). Participants were provided with a digital safety plan on their mobile devices and instructed to activate it during future suicidal crises.
Results:
Participants who activated the digital safety plan showed a 50% lower likelihood of returning to ED.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that digital safety planning may be a scalable and accessible intervention with the potential to significantly contribute to suicide prevention efforts.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.