Bae: A Smartphone Application for a Better Following Adolescents at Risk of Suicidal Behavior: Study of Acceptability and Preliminary Results of Efficacy

Summary

Suicidal behavior among adolescents is a major public health problem. Exacerbation of suicidal risk most often occurs when the young person is in his or her natural environment, far from the health care system. Therefore, real-time risk detection would make it possible to deploy immediate action interventions. A smartphone application for personalized assessment and intervention would enable patients to better anticipate and manage suicidal crises and stay connected to the healthcare system. The increasing use of smartphones and mobile applications among adolescents supports the feasibility and value of such follow-up among young people. In a first phase of this project, investigators first undertook to develop bae: a smartphone application adapted to a population of adolescents collecting information on their suicidal behaviour in a contextualized manner, with the added benefit of offering emotion management modules as well as personalized psychoeducational messages and alerts delivered to young people in the event of a crisis. The application is intended to be a complementary tool to the usual treatment. Before testing its effectiveness and due to the novelty of the intervention, a rigorous feasibility study in a real clinical context is necessary to ensure acceptability and satisfaction with the use of the bae application.

The objective is to evaluate, over a 6-month period, the acceptability of a follow-up of a population of 100 adolescents (12-17 years) at risk of suicidal driving via the bae smartphone application.

Conditions

• Suicide Attempt
• Suicidal Ideation

Interventions

OTHER

bae application

Patients will be assisted by a research team member to install and configure the application bae on their smartphone; then, they will be trained to use it. Bae proposes 4 types of assessments : 1. 5 times a day during 3 days, every month (5 minutes) : patients can assess their emotions, their thoughts, their behavior and their occurrence context. 2. Weekly (7 minutes) : consists of a summary of the week, about their emotions, thoughts, behavior, their relationships (family, work, friends), and their quality of life. 3. Monthly (5 minutes): assessment of the usefulness and satisfaction about the application. 4. Assessment available at any time An action plan is designed to support the participants, to help them facing difficult emotions and feelings, and to encourage them to ask for help. They can contact a relative or call the psychiatric emergency service directly by clicking on a button. Patients can try to identify their own warning signs, to prevent suicidal behavior.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University Hospital, Lille

  collaborator OTHER

• University Hospital, Nîmes

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• La Timone Hospital, Marseille

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Association "Mal être des adolescents", Marseille

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Salvator Hospital, Marseille

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University Hospital, Montpellier

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-09-20

Primary Completion

2022-07-11

Completion

2022-07-11