Corcoran, J., Dattalo, P., Crowley, M., Brown, E., & Grindle, L. (2011). A systematic review of psychosocial interventions for suicidal adolescents. Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 2112-2118.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for youth 15 to 24 years of age and nearly one out of every six youth in the USA report having considered suicide. Further understanding the effectiveness of evidence-based approaches addressing suicidality in youth is thereby critical for this vulnerable population. This systematic review found 17 studies (10 experimental and 7 quasi-experimental) that met their inclusion criteria of: youth aged 10 to 18 years with suicidal thoughts or behaviours, received psychosocial interventions and included suicidality outcome measures. Specific suicidality measures included: suicidal events, self-harm events and suicide ideation. They concluded that psychosocial interventions were slightly effective at reducing youths’ suicidal feelings immediately after intervention. However, youth who had received interventions addressing self-harm and suicidal events were more likely to have incidents of self-harm and suicidal events at 6-7 months and 12-18 month follow-ups.
The systematic review used five databases to locate published and unpublished studies up to 2010, with no restriction on start date. Forty-eight studies were reviewed in full. These studies were then coded for information regarding sample, intervention, methodological approach, and effect size.
Findings were separated into two outcomes: suicidal and self-harm events, and suicidal ideation. For studies measuring suicide ideation, interventions resulted in less self-reports of suicide ideation at posttest and at follow-up. For studies that measured suicidal and self-harm events, this review concluded that at posttest, participants receiving psychosocial interventions were less likely to have suicidal and self-harm immediately after treatment. However, based on information gathered for both follow up periods, these individuals were more likely to self-report suicidal and self-harm events in the months following the intervention.
The authors note that there are few existing studies which track results over time and that what do exist are not rigorous. According to this review, psychosocial intervention programs varied drastically (from 5 days of CBT group therapy to token systems to one year of Multisystemic Therapy) and details on what constituted ‘treatment as usual’ and/or the care given to the control groups was not provided.