Session: Three Approaches to Suicide Prevention in Primary Care (Society for Prevention Research 25th Annual Meeting)

The overall suicide rate in the U.S. has climbed 28 % since 1999 making it the tenth leading cause of death for adults and the second for adolescents/young adults. Despite numerous efforts over the past two decades to reduce suicide, rates have not decreased. A recent study found that 45% of individuals who died by suicide had contact with primary care services within one month before their death. The goal of this symposium session is to present three approaches to suicide prevention focused on primary care settings and providers. Presentations will report on in-progress studies each focused on a different primary care context including medical center provider training, the Veterans Health Administration, and pediatric primary care. The symposium supports the conference theme of prevention in primary care as well as development and testing of interventions. The symposium brings together researchers from a diverse set of institutions as well as an expert discussant.

The first paper, “The Impact of Simulation on Suicide Prevention Skills in a Training Program for Primary Care Providers: Design and Preliminary Results from an RCT” describes a study of primary care providers-in-training. The control group receives online didactics; the experimental group receives the same didactics plus practice interactions with trained standardized patients. The primary research question is focused on the impact of practice on observed suicide prevention skills over and above didactics.

The second paper, “Suicide Prevention and the Reorganization of Primary Care: the Role of Communication and Role Differentiation in the era of Team-based Collaborative Care” describes a study of stakeholder perspectives on suicide prevention in the context of the Veterans Health Administration’s primary care-based Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACTs). Findings from focus groups with nurses, integrated behavioral health providers and primary care providers will be presented.

 The third paper, “Acceptability and Use of Evidence-Based Practices for Safe Firearm Practices in Pediatric Primary Care for Suicide Prevention” describes a study of pediatric practice leaders and physicians to learn about the barriers and facilitators to promoting an evidence-based practice for improving parental firearm safety in pediatric primary care. Results from surveys will provide important insights into current use and acceptability of the intervention.

The discussant will reflect on the presentations and moderate a discussion. It is expected that the topic of suicide prevention in the context of primary care and the diverse but complementary research projects’ foci will be of interest to the SPR meeting participants.