Community Mental Health Treatment for Suicidality: Implementation of a Culturally Adapted Youth Suicide Prevention Program

We present preliminary outcomes of an open pilot of a transdiagnostic suicide treatment program adapted for Latinx youth in a community setting. We enrolled 81 youth, aged 12–17 years, referred by their treating clinician for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Almost 80% were female and over 65% were Latinx. Over 68% had a history of suicide attempt, with 75% having a history of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) based on the Columbia Suicide Rating Scale (C-SSRS). Measures of depressive symptoms (Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology, Adolescent Version; QIDS-A₁₇-SR) and suicidal thoughts and risk (Concise Health Risk Tracker; CHRT) were assessed at baseline and end of treatment. Program satisfaction was measured at treatment completion using the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8). Over 87% of participants completed the program, with an average of 6.71 sessions of the 8-session program attended. Satisfaction with the program was high. No differences were found between those with attempt history and those without on baseline demographic or clinical characteristics. We found a 63.19% decrease in attempts in youth following treatment compared to baseline, given lifetime attempts. Furthermore, there was a 53.42% decrease in NSSI following treatment compared to entrance at baseline, given lifetime NSSI. Although those who had a lifetime attempt had significantly greater depressive symptoms at baseline compared to those without lifetime attempt (14.418 vs. 11.600, p = 0.0324), the two groups converged to similar mild levels of depressive symptoms following treatment (9.891 vs. 9.069, p = 0.5511). While preliminary, acute outcomes of this open pilot show promising results for this culturally adapted suicide prevention program.