A Recovery-Oriented Suicide Prevention Program Led by Peer Specialists for Veterans With Serious Mental Illness: Protocol for a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Veterans with serious mental illness (SMI) have significantly elevated suicide risk compared to those without SMI. This group may also experience cognitive and functional impairments that complicate suicide prevention care. OBJECTIVE: We detail a pilot randomized controlled trial protocol evaluating a novel peer specialist-delivered suicide prevention intervention tailored to SMI called Suicide Prevention by Peers Offering Recovery Tactics (SUPPORT). In SUPPORT, peer specialists are trained in foundational suicide prevention information and intervention delivery. Once a week for 50 minutes, a peer specialist meets with a veteran via telehealth or in person to deliver the 4 SUPPORT modules that focus on recovery and suicide prevention. The peer specialist conducts 2 check-in calls at 2 and 4 weeks after the final module to reinforce the intervention material and offer additional resources. Aim 1 will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of SUPPORT. Aim 2 will determine the preliminary impact of SUPPORT versus enhanced standard care on personal recovery and suicide ideation severity (primary outcomes), as well as domains of veteran functioning (secondary outcomes). Standard care is enhanced such that all veterans receive additional suicide risk assessment, which may result in additional clinical interaction. METHODS: A pilot randomized controlled trial with 50 veterans randomized into 2 groups will be conducted. Participants will be recruited from the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. Veterans with SMI and past-1-month active suicide thoughts or past-3-month suicide behavior as defined by the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale will be included. Enrolled veterans will be randomized to receive SUPPORT or enhanced standard care. All veteran participants will be assessed at baseline and the 1-, 2-, and 3-month follow-up assessments. Feasibility is defined as attainment of recruitment goals and a ≥70% retention rate. Acceptability for veterans is measured using the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8. Acceptability for peer specialists is measured using a satisfaction question rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Primary outcomes are measured using the Recovery Assessment Scale-41 (personal recovery), as well as the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation and the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (suicide ideation severity). Secondary outcomes are measured using the Specific Level of Functioning Scale (functioning), the brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale (quality of life), and a laboratory-developed self-knowledge task (suicide prevention strategy recall). Outcomes will be tested using mixed-effects models. Safety procedures for all participants are discussed. RESULTS: This trial was funded in November 2022. Community-engaged intervention and protocol refinement were completed in January 2025. Data collection for the randomized controlled trial began in January 2025. CONCLUSIONS: By combining training for peer specialists with a novel recovery-oriented suicide prevention intervention, SUPPORT helps establish a role for peer specialists in suicide prevention and addressing suicide in veterans with SMI. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05537376; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05537376. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/66182.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.032 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.012 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.086 | 0.011 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".