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Implementing a safety plan intervention as part of suicide risk screening
Author(s) -
Walters Anne S.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the brown university child and adolescent behavior letter
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1556-7575
pISSN - 1058-1073
DOI - 10.1002/cbl.30450
Subject(s) - commission , plan (archaeology) , intervention (counseling) , suicide prevention , occupational safety and health , scale (ratio) , medicine , poison control , medical emergency , psychology , psychiatry , political science , geography , archaeology , cartography , pathology , law
Several months ago, this commentary focused on implementation of the Joint Commission requirement to begin suicide screenings for behavioral health patients as of July 2019, and last month's commentary by Dr. Alex Bettis described strides made in suicide prevention for children and adolescents in Rhode Island. As part of the suicide prevention initiative, she gave a brief description of the structured safety plan used to ensure a safe transition home. With consultation from this team, we have continued work on the implementation of safety planning for patients that screen in the moderate or high risk for suicide category using the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale Screener. The Joint Commission national patient safety goal for suicide prevention specifies that the “plan to mitigate the risk for suicide” be documented, but there is little specific guidance on the process. This may in part be due to the paucity of research on “contracting for safety” and “safety planning” (Knesper et al., 2011).