Virtual Hope Box - Effectiveness of a Smartphone App for Coping With Suicidal Ideation

Suicidal Ideation Clinical Trial

— VHB-RCT  

Official title:

Effectiveness of a Virtual Hope Box Smartphone App in Enhancing Veterans' Coping With Suicidal Ideation: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01982773
• Other study ID #: 001-W81XWH-10-2-0178
• Secondary ID: 1334
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: November 6, 2013
• Last updated: July 5, 2017
• Start date: March 2014
• Est. completion date: April 2016

Study information

• Verified date: July 2017
• Source: National Center for Telehealth and Technology
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

A hope box or self soothing kit is a therapeutic tool employed by clinicians with patients expressing suicidal ideation, significant distress, or otherwise at risk of suicidal or non-suicidal self harm. A "Virtual Hope Box" (VHB) takes the common hope box practice and uses smartphone features to enhance the experience. The rich multimedia features on a smartphone allow more varied options. Furthermore, these devices are already a common repository for user-generated and user-preferred media, which will allow for a highly personalized VHB that is highly portable and always available to a user in distress. We hypothesize that:

1. Patients in the (VHB) intervention condition will demonstrate pre-post reductions in 1) severity of suicidal ideation 2) ability to cope with stressors and 3) increases in perceived reasons for living

2. Patients in the intervention condition will demonstrate greater pre-post reductions in symptoms of suicidal ideation, ability to cope with stressors, and perceived reasons for living compared to patients in the (ETAU) control condition.

3. Patients and clinicians will find VHB to be beneficial and its use readily integrated into practice.

Description:

Our overall objective in the proposed study is to assess the impact of a virtual hope-box (VHB) smartphone app on suicidal ideation in veterans undergoing clinical therapy who have recently had suicidal ideation or behavior. We propose to conduct this study in two phases:

Phase 1: Modifying the current VHB-β version of the app to accommodate feedback from pilot study participants. The result will be the VHB V1.0 to be tested in phase 2. This component of the study will be conducted by the T2 group located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Phase 2: Implementing a randomized controlled trial comparing the VHB intervention with enhanced treatment as usual (ETAU) in clinical practice. This component of the study will be conducted at the Portland VA Medical Center.

This research project seeks to answer several essential questions:

1. Can a smartphone app containing the essential components of a hope box and associated elements of CT/DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) reduce severity of suicidal ideation, and increase perceptions of reasons for living and ability to cope, in a clinical sample of veterans?

2. Is a smartphone VHB app more effective in reducing severity of suicidal ideation, and increasing perceptions of reasons for living and ability to cope, compared to enhanced treatment as usual (ETAU)? In addition, we will gather important information about implementing and integrating VHB as a treatment component in mental health treatment

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 118
• Est. completion date: April 2016
• Est. primary completion date: April 2016
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• US Service Veterans in active treatment by Portland VA mental health clinicians

• Patients expressing suicidal ideation, thoughts of suicidal self-harm, or determined to be at "high risk" for suicide by treating clinician or Suicide Prevention Team

• Patients owning and regularly using/carrying their own iPhone or Android phones

• Patients identified as clinically suitable by their clinicians for hope box utilization or enhanced treatment as usual (ETAU) as part of treatment

Exclusion Criteria:

• Moderate or severe dementia or significant cognitive disturbance as indicated by chart diagnosis of dementia or score of greater than or equal to 10 on the Short Blessed questionnaire during screening

• Patients considered terminally ill according to documentation in patient records

• Patients with designated guardians, who are unable to provide consent without the assistance of a legally authorized representative or guardian

• Patients admitted to inpatient unit

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Coping
• Suicidal Ideation
• Thoughts of Self Harm

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Virtual Hope Box Smartphone App
Smartphone app
• Enhanced Treatment as Usual
Printed materials

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Portland VA Medical Center	Portland	Oregon
United States	National Center for Telehealth and Technology	Tacoma	Washington

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
National Center for Telehealth and Technology	Portland VA Medical Center, The Geneva Foundation

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (27)

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* Note: There are 27 references in all — Click here to view all references

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation	measures self-report severity of suicidal ideation during the past week using 21 items. Three factors are assessed: desire for death, preparation for suicide and actual suicide desire. This measure assess an individual's thoughts, attitudes and intentions regarding suicide. Scores could range from 0 - 48. The higher the score indicated the greater risk for suicidal ideation.	Baseline
Primary	Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation	measures self-report severity of suicidal ideation during the past week using 21 items. Three factors are assessed: desire for death, preparation for suicide and actual suicide desire. This measure assess an individual's thoughts, attitudes and intentions regarding suicide. Scores could range from 0 - 48.The higher the score indicated the greater risk for suicidal ideation.	3 week follow up
Primary	Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation	measures self-report severity of suicidal ideation during the past week using 21 items. Three factors are assessed: desire for death, preparation for suicide and actual suicide desire. This measure assess an individual's thoughts, attitudes and intentions regarding suicide. Scores could range from 0 - 48.The higher the score indicated the greater risk for suicidal ideation.	6 week follow up
Primary	Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation	measures self-report severity of suicidal ideation during the past week using 21 items. Three factors are assessed: desire for death, preparation for suicide and actual suicide desire. This measure assess an individual's thoughts, attitudes and intentions regarding suicide. Scores could range from 0 - 48.The higher the score indicated the greater risk for suicidal ideation.	12 week follow up