Randomized Clinical Trial of Re-Evaluating Suicidal Thoughts in Veterans

Suicide prevention is a top priority for VA as all continue to seek new and inventive ways to reduce suicide rates among Veterans. Many experts agree that suicide prevention efforts could be improved by making suicide-specific interventions easier to access. The current project aims to move toward that goal by testing a web-based suicide prevention intervention using an experimental design. The roughly 40-minute intervention aims to teach Veterans coping skills that are designed to ease the emotional distress that often comes with thoughts of suicide. The project will evaluate whether Veterans who receive this intervention report more improvement in suicidal thoughts and behaviors than Veterans who receive a standard course of health care visits. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors will be measured over the course of one month. The investigators hypothesize that Veterans who receive the intervention will report lower suicidal thoughts and behaviors than those who receive the standard course of health care.