Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Winter;85(4):317-333.
doi: 10.1080/00332747.2022.2092828. Epub 2022 Jul 18.

Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions for Suicide Prevention: Promise, Challenges, and Future Directions

Daniel D L Coppersmith, Walter Dempsey, Evan M Kleiman, Kate H Bentley, Susan A Murphy, Matthew K Nock
Review

Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions for Suicide Prevention: Promise, Challenges, and Future Directions

Daniel D L Coppersmith et al. Psychiatry. 2022 Winter.

Abstract

The suicide rate (currently 14 per 100,000) has barely changed in the United States over the past 100 years. There is a need for new ways of preventing suicide. Further, research has revealed that suicidal thoughts and behaviors and the factors that drive them are dynamic, heterogeneous, and interactive. Most existing interventions for suicidal thoughts and behaviors are infrequent, not accessible when most needed, and not systematically tailored to the person using their own data (e.g., from their own smartphone). Advances in technology offer an opportunity to develop new interventions that may better match the dynamic, heterogeneous, and interactive nature of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs), which use smartphones and wearables, are designed to provide the right type of support at the right time by adapting to changes in internal states and external contexts, offering a promising pathway toward more effective suicide prevention. In this review, we highlight the potential of JITAIs for suicide prevention, challenges ahead (e.g., measurement, ethics), and possible solutions to these challenges.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Hypothetical Micro-Randomized Trial for Suicide Prevention
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Naghavi M Global, regional, and national burden of suicide mortality 1990 to 2016: systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. BMJ 364, 194 (2019). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stone DM et al. Vital Signs: Trends in State Suicide Rates — United States, 1999–2016 and Circumstances Contributing to Suicide — 27 States, 2015. Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep 67, 617–624 (2018). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cha CB et al. Annual Research Review: Suicide among youth – epidemiology, (potential) etiology, and treatment. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 59, 460–482 (2018). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zalsman G et al. Suicide prevention strategies revisited: 10-year systematic review. Lancet Psychiatry 3, 646–659 (2016). - PubMed
    1. Ribeiro JD et al. Letter to the Editor: Suicide as a complex classification problem: machine learning and related techniques can advance suicide prediction - a reply to Roaldset (2016). Psychol. Med 46, 2009–2010 (2016). - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources