# Telehealth Supplement to Realtime Intervention for Suicide Risk Reduction

> **NIH NIH R34** · RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIV OF N.J. · 2020 · $122,917

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Suicide is a leading cause of death, with over 47,000 individuals who die by suicide each year in the United
States. Nonfatal suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) not only confer risk for future death by suicide, but
also are associated with significant public health and economic costs, and extremely distressing to those who
experience them. Though a number of in-person psychotherapy protocols have been developed or modified to
address STBs, some of which have shown promising results, many individuals in need are unable to access
such treatments. Barriers to accessing face-to-face psychotherapy include cost, difficulties with scheduling,
distance from qualified providers, long waitlists, and perceived stigma. The fact that the suicide rate has not yet
declined (and for some subsets of the population, has increased steadily) suggests that many suicidal
individuals are not receiving the more promising existing interventions. Telehealth, which facilitates delivery of
evidence-based therapeutic content over videoconferencing technology or telephone sessions, may help
overcome the barriers to accessing treatment and thus help suicidal individuals receive the care they need,
including during particularly high-risk time periods. Yet, to our knowledge, telehealth has not yet been
systematically leveraged to improve access to evidence-based psychotherapy for recently discharged suicidal
inpatients. This supplement proposes a telehealth adaptation of the intervention being tested in
R34MH113757, which involves three brief in-person skills training sessions during suicidal individuals’ inpatient
stays followed by a smartphone-based ecological momentary intervention (EMI) aimed to facilitate skills
practice during real-world moments of distress over the 28 days after discharge: the highest-risk period for
suicidal behavior. Specifically, we will evaluate delivery of in-person skills training sessions over telehealth in
two ways: (1) as a supplement to the in-person session(s) that participants are able to receive before being
discharged, and (2) as a standalone intervention in which participants receive all three sessions via telehealth
after discharge. This novel adaptation has the potential to vastly improve R34 study feasibility (as almost half
of participants in the pilot study have been unable to receive all three sessions before being discharged due to
clinical or scheduling issues) and possibly, intervention efficacy (due to slowing the pace of skills delivery and
thus potentially improving skills acquisition and consolidation). We will test hypotheses that the telehealth -
delivered sessions will be both acceptable (from participants’ and therapists’ perspectives) and feasible, in that,
for example, telehealth will maximize the number of sessions participants receive in total and improve
compliance to the EMI after discharge. We will also preliminarily evaluate the efficacy of telehealth-delivered
sessions in terms of chang...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10136832
- **Project number:** 3R34MH113757-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIV OF N.J.
- **Principal Investigator:** Kate H. Bentley
- **Activity code:** R34 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $122,917
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-06-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10136832

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10136832, Telehealth Supplement to Realtime Intervention for Suicide Risk Reduction (3R34MH113757-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10136832. Licensed CC0.

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