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• Posted August 16, 2024

Text Message Program Helps Teens at Risk for Suicide

Kids considering suicide after receiving mental health care at a hospital can be helped by automated text messages that help them feel hopeful and supported, a new study finds.

Children receiving the texts as part of a program called Caring Contacts said they felt more positive after receiving the messages.

“Prior research has shown that patients are around 300 times more at risk of suicide in the first week after hospital discharge, and 200 times more at risk over the first month compared to the general population,” said senior researcher John Ackerman, a child clinical psychologist and suicide prevention clinical manager for the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio.

“Reaching patients where they are in their day-to-day lives is crucial in supporting them before, during and after a crisis,” Ackerman added in a hospital news release. “That also means ensuring messages of hope and validation are accessible with the technology they use most -- their phones."

Caring Contacts include supportive text messages with accompanying images meant to promote hope, inclusivity and connection, researchers said. The messages also include contacts for crisis resources.

These texts were sent to more than 1,700 kids after their discharge from Nationwide Children’s following a suicidal crisis, for a four-month period.

About 83% of the children said they felt moderately to very hopeful after receiving the texts, and 88% felt moderately to very supported, results showed.

About 86% said they’d want to keep receiving the messages in the future, if given the option, and 92% thought other kids would be helped by the texts.

The program was most popular among 18-year-olds, and least popular among 13-year-olds, results show. Girls enrolled at a higher rate than boys, 54% versus 48%.

“More work needs to be done in order to measure clinical effectiveness and improve rates of enrollment," said lead researcher Glenn Thomas, director of behavioral health services at Nationwide Children’s. "However, as the first children’s hospital to study this approach and integrate it as part of an overall quality improvement framework, we are encouraged by what we’ve seen in terms of implementing this approach in our hospital."

“Patients need to know that we are here for them even after they leave our walls,” Thomas added.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, expert and confidential advice is available 24/7 on the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

The new study was published recently in the journal JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting.

More information

The Children’s Hospital Association has more on pediatric suicide.

SOURCE: Nationwide Children’s Hospital, news release, Aug. 13, 2024