GRIP
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), suicide is the 15th most frequent cause of death in the world and is responsible for approximately 800,000 deaths per year (WHO, 2014). It is of importance to further develop and implement interventions that focus on decreasing the number of deaths due to suicide. Improving mental health treatment and its availability for suicidal patients may be considered to be an important target when it comes to reducing the number of suicides, since studies indicate that 90-95% of the people that commit suicide were dealing with a mental health disorder (Cavanagh et al., 2003; Nock et al., 2008).
Research has shown that cognitive behavioral therapy focused on suicide prevention (CBT-sp) is capable of reducing suicidality in various populations (Meerwijk et al., 2016; Mewton, 2016; Tarrier et al., 2008). The study ‘GGZ inteRvention In Prevention of suicidal behavior’ (GRIP) will investigate whether CBT-sp is also effective for suicidal patients (ideators as well as attempters) within the Dutch outpatient mental health care via a randomized controlled trial.
The primary objective is to study the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy for suicide prevention (CBT-sp) added to treatment as usual (TAU) in reducing suicide ideation and suicidal behavior amongst patients receiving outpatient mental health care as compared with only TAU. The intervention will be applied transdiagnostically. Participants will be randomly assigned to either the experimental treatment group or the group that will receive only TAU. The primary outcome measure is defined as a reduction in severity and intensity of suicide ideation and suicidal behavior after 10 treatment sessions and during a follow-up period of six months after the end of treatment, measured by the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS; (Posner et al., 2011). The secondary objective is to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved in suicide idation and suicidal behavior.
Project leaders of this study are prof. Patricia van Oppen and Jet Heering. Jasper Wiebenga (PhD student) is the coordinating ivestigator.
Contact information
T: 020-7884634 (Jasper Wiebenga)