The Center for Enhancing Triage and Utilization for Depression and Emergent Suicidality (ETUDES) in Pediatric Primary Care

NIH RePORTER · NIH · P50 · $1,278,738 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Overview Abstract Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among adolescents and has increased by 20% in the past decade. The majority of suicide decedents have their last clinical contact in primary care. This ALACRITY Center proposes 3 studies designed to help PCPs capitalize on universal screening for teen depression by enhancing pediatric primary care’s capacity to identify, triage, and manage depressed and suicidal adolescents. To promote a consistent, best practice approach to adolescents who screen positive for depression or suicidality, Study 1 develops a decision support system (DSS) to guide PCPs’ treatment recommendations to reflect patient acuity, barriers, attitudes, and treatment preferences. To increase the low rate of treatment attendance among patients who screen positive for depression, Study 2 develops and tests a personalized texting intervention that targets patient and parent motivation, readiness, and barriers. To guide PCPs upon identification of suicidal adolescents through routine screening, Study 3 develops and tests an app to guide the PCP to develop a safety plan and stabilize the suicidal patient, thereby avoiding unnecessary referrals to the ED and hospital. These studies are innovative through their use of technology to personalize interventions on the basis of personal preferences, motivations, barriers, and clinical presentation. These interventions are likely to be of high impact, by potentially doubling the rate of treatment adherence in depressed adolescents and halving the rate of suicide attempts in those at high risk. We will solicit pilot projects through innovation contests for teams of investigators and stakeholders on novel methods to identify and reduce suicidal risk in adolescents, such use of data mining of health records to identify suicidal youth, and assessment of suicide risk via analysis of speech and facial expression. These studies will be conducted in our CTSI-supported pediatric research practice network, PittNet, which has successfully supported many mental health research studies. PittNet facilitated meetings with pediatricians and other stakeholders to collaboratively develop these priorities and associated studies, so that the ensuing products would be meaningful, practical, useful to clinicians and patients, and highly likely to be disseminated. This Center provides shared infrastructure for the engagement and collaboration with stakeholders, as well as for recruitment, assessment, technology development, data management and analysis, access to EHRs and costs analyses. Our multidisciplinary team of primary care and mental health professionals, data scientists, and health services researchers has collectively led 9 NIH funded trials of mental health interventions in primary care, 10 NIMH-funded intervention development or clinical trials for mood disordered and suicidal adolescents, and 7 NIH grants that develop and test technologies to support clinicians and patients. This team has ext...

Key facts

NIH application ID
10136092
Project number
5P50MH115838-04
Recipient
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
Principal Investigator
David A. Brent
Activity code
P50
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2021
Award amount
$1,278,738
Award type
5
Project period
2018-07-17 → 2022-07-31