Evaluation of the SignPost Study: a mobile phone messaging intervention to support people bereaved by suicide

INTERVENTION: The SignPost study is an evidence‐informed brief contact intervention comprising a series of text messages for people bereaved by suicide. Messages will be sent over a six‐week period to participants (18 years or over) bereaved by suicide and will contain information and links to readily available supports and psychoeducation about grief following suicide. A randomised controlled trial will be used to investigate the efficacy of the intervention. Participants will be randomly allocated to either an intervention group or the control (i.e., treatment‐as‐usual) group. The intervention group will receive a series of SMS brief contacts over a six‐week period, provided in addition to treatment as usual. The messages will link to a Webpage hosted on Qualtrics and include a links to Factsheets relevant to the topic of the message. The specific content and framing of the messages and the type of content provided have been developed through a two‐phase collaborative method. First, international experts in suicide prevention provided input into the issues and timing of these issues, and second, the outcomes of this were reviewed through focus groups with people with lived experience of suicide bereavement to finalise the message content. This study will use a mixed‐methods approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention with survey assessments conducted at baseline (T1) and six‐week post‐baseline (T2), with qualitative interviews conducted after the intervention period with a subset of participants. Messages are sent via SMS at the following timepoints across a six week period, with the subject identified: Message 1 @T1 + 1 day ‐ grief after suicide Message 2 @ T1 + 8 days ‐ practical challenges Message 3 @ T1 + 15 days ‐ relationships a CONDITION: Mental Health ‐ Studies of normal psychology, cognitive function and behaviour Mental Health ‐ Suicide Suicide bereavement;Grief; ; Suicide bereavement ; Grief PRIMARY OUTCOME: Primary outcome 1: Psychological distress ‐ Clinically significant improvement and deterioration in symptoms assessed via K‐10 (Kessler et al., 2003) [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] SECONDARY OUTCOME: Actual Help Seeking Questionnaire AHSQ; Wilson et al., 2005) [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Impact of suicide (Maple and Sanford, 2020)[Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 1: Suicide exposure (Maple & Sanford, 2020) [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 2: Help seeking intentions and behaviours as measured by General Help Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ; Wilson et al., 2005) and factors associated with these outcomes[Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 3: Suicidal ideation and attempts as measured by SIDAS (van Spijker et al., 2014) ; ; [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 4: Functioning as measured by a HRQOL‐14 survey item (Newschaffer, 1998) and factors associated with these outcomes ; ; [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 5: Complicated grief as measured by Inventory of Complicated Grief (Prigerson et al., 1995) and factors associated with these outcomes[Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 6: Resilience as measured by Resilience Appraisal Scale 12 (Johnson et al., 2010) and factors associated with these outcomes ; ; [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Secondary outcome 7: Alcohol use as measured by AUDIT‐C (Bush et al., 1998) and factors associated with these outcomes ; INCLUSION CRITERIA: To be eligible to take part in this study, participants will need to be: ; [Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] Semi‐structured interview with sub‐sample of 20 participants via video‐conferencing (zoom) at a time that is mutually convenient. Content of the interview focused on the outcome measures of interest, and participants will be purposively sampled via initial quantitative analysis for maximum variation sampling to be achieved. [Mutually convenient time ‐ invitation to participate one month following T2 (six weeks post‐baseline). ] Single item Wellbeing as measured by a HILDA survey item and factors associated with these outcomes[Timepoint: baseline (T1), at six‐week post‐baseline (T2)] ‐ 18 years or over ‐ Bereaved by suicide (self‐identified) in the last year ‐ Living in Australia ‐ Proficient in English language ‐ Access to a personal mobile phone ‐ Not currently considering suicide