Qualitative Assessment of the Brief Contact Intervention "Stay in Contact" in Suicide Prevention

Qualitative Assessment of the French Brief Contact Intervention "Stay in Contact" in Suicide Prevention

Background: For 40 years, brief contact interventions (BCIs) have been presented as promising approaches in suicide prevention but patient's experiences of BCIs are less investigated.

Aim: Understand mechanisms of BCIs after suicide attempt, through patient's experience of a French BCI "Stay in contact" and assess its impact on seeking care during suicidal crisis.

Method:This is a single-center, non-interventional, prospective qualitative study using phone call interview on a BCI, 6 months after suicide attempt behavior.

Statistical analysis

Data were analyzed using statistical software (Version 9.4, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina, USA). Chi-squared test was used to assess qualitative variables and t-test to evaluate quantitative variables, with p<.05 considered significant.

The baseline interviews were conducted on the phone, on weekdays, during a mean time of 10 to 15minutes by a trained resident in psychiatry as the only interviewer. The interviewer didn't participate in patient's medical care nor in the follow-up interventions. The interviewer didn't look in patients file before conducted over the phone interviews and had only administrative information on the study subjects: first and last name, age, sex, phone number. The phone call interview wasn't considered as an intervention. Whenever the interviewer judged necessary that a patient needed more intensive treatment, the relevant referral to help was done.

Inclusion Criteria:

• be male or female, be aged 18 or older, have a situation permitting follow-up contacts by phone.

Exclusion Criteria:

• be placed under supervision by the law such as guardianship and curatorship, be incarcerated and refusing to participate to the BCI