Multicenter RCT to Evaluate the Clinical and Cost-effectiveness of a Culturally Adapted Therapy (C-MAP) in Patients With a History of Self-harm

Suicide is a serious global public health issue, ranked amongst the leading causes of death in many countries. Most of these (75%) are in the low and middle income countries (LAMIC) and globally suicide is the second leading cause of death in young people 15-29 years of age. There is no official data on suicide from Pakistan, a conservative South Asian Islamic country with historically low suicide rates. Both suicide and attempted suicide are illegal acts, as well as socially and religiously condemned, however, there is accumulating evidence that suicide rates have been gradually increasing in Pakistan over the last few years.

The culturally adapted psychological intervention C-MAP utilizes problem solving components within a brief intervention that can be widely utilized in clinical practice. Our previous pilot trial in Karachi shows the efficacy of CBT based intervention(C-MAP) in people who had recently self harmed.The findings from this work have highlighted the applicability of such an intervention to health services in Pakistan for patients who present after a self-harm episode