Suicide prevention research at Menninger

Suicide—the 11th leading cause of death among Americans—is the most commonly encountered mental health-related emergency and a clinician’s greatest fear. There are no evidence-based inpatient treatments for suicide even though hospitalization is the primary clinical response to suicidal risk.

In an effort to effectively address suicide, the Menninger staff is collaborating with consultant David Jobes, PhD, an acclaimed expert in the study of suicide prevention, a professor of psychology and co-director of clinical training at Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, and an advisor to the Department of Veteran Affairs. In consultation with Dr. Jobes, a wide range of interventions have been implemented at The Menninger Clinic to address suicide prevention. But which interventions or combination of interventions make the most difference?

The Menninger Clinic is conducting a randomized controlled trial of treatment meant to more rapidly resolve suicidal crises and to reduce suicide attempts and suicides among patients with mental illness. A free-standing inpatient treatment for suicide was created based on an outpatient assessment and treatment approach developed by Dr. Jobes and colleagues called the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS). The Menninger study is designed to investigate the impact of a newly developed intensive inpatient version of CAMS which would be compared to treatment as usual (TAU) control group care.

In an effort to develop better evidence-based interventions to prevent suicide, the research project will focus on the very people most at-risk for attempting suicide–those who have made previous suicide attempts, who exhibit personality and mood disorders or other neuropsychiatric conditions and families with a history of clinical depression, physical illness and drug or alcohol abuse.

In some patients, suicide is always a factor since they keep suicide as an ever-present and potential choice, a possibility that comforts them amid their considerable pain. If all else fails, they say, at least they have suicide as an option. In many cases, it is that thought that keeps them alive, an ironic insight into one of the perplexing complexities that hovers over mental illness.

Menninger is an ideal environment for developing a new and potentially life-saving treatment for suicidal risk. In contrast to most psychiatric inpatient settings, The Menninger Clinic offers longer-term inpatient lengths of stay where there is an intensive level of observation, around the clock support and the full compliment of contemporary psychosocial and biological treatments for psychiatric inpatients.

Since past studies have not definitively identified what makes a difference in a patient wrestling with thoughts of death or acting on those thoughts, the need to know more about suicide prevention and treatment is great and long overdue.

Menninger is a leading psychiatric hospital dedicated to
treating individuals with mood, personality, anxiety and
addictive disorders, teaching mental health professionals
and advancing mental healthcare through research.

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Affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine and
The Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center
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