Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
New researchAttachment-Based Family Therapy for Adolescents with Suicidal Ideation: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Section snippets
Procedures
The research occurred in the Department of Psychiatry at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Patients were recruited mainly from CHOP's primary care offices and emergency room. During routine clinical interviews, patients identified as having suicidal thoughts were referred to the clinic social worker for an assessment. Adolescents who endorsed scores above 31 on the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ-JR)23 and above 20 (i.e., moderate depression) on the Beck Depression Inventory
Enrollment Statistics
Between March 2005 and May 2007, 341 adolescents were referred for the first screening (Figure 1). Of the 248 who were excluded, 188 did not meet study criteria, 36 became unreachable before the second screening, 14 refused study participation, six were hospitalized, and four were excluded for other reasons. Of the 93 who attended the second screening, 11 no longer met study criteria, eight were unreachable before consent, and five refused study participation. Of the 69 who qualified based on
Discussion
The findings from this study are promising. Compared with usual care in the community, youth treated with ABFT demonstrated significantly greater and more rapid reductions in suicidal ideation during the treatment. These differences persisted at follow-up, with an overall large effect size (.97). These findings are strengthened by the consistency across self-report, clinician ratings, and for the subsample of patients who met criteria for a depressive diagnosis. ABFT was also associated with
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This article is discussed in an editorial by Dr. Neal D. Ryan on page 89.
Funded by grant R49 CE000428 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Dr. G.S. Diamond, PI).
Disclosure: Drs. G.S. Diamond, Wintersteen, Brown, G.M. Diamond, Gallop, Shelef, and Levy report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.