A Randomized 3-Month, Parallel-Group, Controlled Trial of CALMA M-Health App as an Adjunct to Therapy for the Reduction of Suicidal and Non-Suicidal Self-Injurious Behaviors in Adolescents

Suicide and suicidal behaviors are among the leading causes of death and injury worldwide. Although in Argentina the overall suicide rate has remained relatively stable in the last 15 years, when analyzing the rates by age group, it is observed that in that same period there was a gradual and sustained growth in the suicide rate in subjects between 15 and 24 years of age. Despite the efficacy of interventions for the management of suicidal crises observed in some clinical trials, a crucial aspect for their effectiveness in daily practice is accessibility, that is, the availability of the intervention at the time of the crisis. This leaves little time to intervene during the suicidal process. This is why, beyond employing effective interventions to prevent suicide, it is necessary that they be quickly accessible at the time of crisis. New platforms to provide evidence-based interventions, universally, economically, and quickly are needed. Smartphones appear to be a good alternative considering the high penetration of these devices locally. The development of mobile applications (apps) for the prevention of suicidal behavior is recent.

The research group carried out a pilot randomized controlled cluster trial with four weeks of follow-up that provided initial evidence on the safety and acceptability of the app for reducing self-injurious thoughts and behaviors when used as an adjunct to conventional Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). This study conducted with a group of patients who were already undergoing DBT treatment program, have shown good acceptability of CALMA as an adjunct to therapy targeting suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury behaviors. Furthermore, although effectiveness was not the main outcome, results revealed a high probability to decrease suicidal outcomes including ideation, suicidal behaviors, Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) and thoughts about NSSI in the group that received CALMA compared to the comparison group To investigators knowledge, no specific app for adolescents and young people is available in Spanish. The research group developed CALMA (the Spanish word for "calm"), the first user-interactive mobile app in Spanish. CALMA provides evidence-based tools to manage a suicidal or non-suicidal self-directed violence crisis with the goal of preventing death by suicide. CALMA also interacts with the user between crises by promoting activities that reduce their vulnerability to suicide by provide psychoeducation about suicide and its prevention. Based on these encouraging initial findings, in this project the investigators propose to scale the intervention to a larger group of patients, focus it on adolescents and include public hospitals not specialized in DBT.

The investigators are conducting a parallel group, two-arm randomized controlled trial design, which will employ an intervention condition (CALMA app) and a control condition (Treatment as usual -TAU) with a 3-month follow-up for each participant, to evaluate the effectiveness, safety and acceptability of CALMA, a suicide prevention app for smartphones, to reduce the frequency of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in adolescents who are assisted in a Mental Health service of three Public Hospitals.