Operation Worth Living Project With Suicidal Soldiers at Ft. Stewart

A Randomized Clinical Trial of the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality Versus Enhanced Care as Usual for Suicidal Soldiers

This is a randomized controlled trial comparing the use of new clinical intervention (the "Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality--CAMS") versus enhanced care as usual for suicidal Soldiers who are seen at outpatient mental health clinics at Ft. Stewart GA.

This is a randomized controlled clinical trial of 148 suicidal active-duty US Army Soldiers. Participants were randomized to on-site providers who were trained in the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) vs. providers doing their own routine care--referred to as Enhanced Care as Usual (E-CAU) within an outpatient military treatment center. The CAMS Rating Scale (CRS) was used to reliably verify fidelity between treatment conditions and the adherence by CAMS providers to the model. Participants received informed consent to be randomly assigned to treatment arm and were ask to complete study assessments at baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months after the start of treatment. Recruitment is complete and all study assessments were completed as of March 2016. The study is in a second year of no cost extension; outcome data analyses and moderator analyses are currently underway to develop manuscripts for submission to peer-review scientific journals.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Active duty Army personnel at FSGA
• Significant suicidal ideation
• Soldier is appropriate under FSGA policies
• Consent at baseline and follow up
• Consent to randomization and being digitally recorded

Exclusion Criteria:

• Significant psychosis, cognitive or physical impairment to not give consent
• Judicially ordered treatments