Veterans Health Administration 5I01HX003502-02

Virtual Hope Box Enhanced Facilitation in High-Risk Suicidal Veterans

This award funds a study by the Veterans Health Administration to evaluate the effectiveness of the Virtual Hope Box Enhanced Facilitation intervention in preventing suicide attempts among high-risk Veterans through a randomized controlled trial and qualitative interviews.

Description

In 2014, a DoD/VA collaboration created the Virtual Hope Box (VHB) mobile app to support suicide prevention. Despite years of investment, the VA does not know if the VHB works and over 90% of high-risk Veterans hospitalized with a recent crisis state they have never heard of it (and even fewer have actually used it). Two VA Medical Centers (Ann Arbor and Puget Sound) will conduct a study of the VHB Enhanced Facilitation (VHB-EF) intervention in which a therapist will help educate Veterans on app purpose for suicide prevention, load the app on their personal phone, practice each app component, discuss strategies to enhance app use, and follow-up after hospital discharge to check-in and support VHB use. This study aims to examine the VHB-EF’s effect on suicide attempts using a randomized controlled trial and explore facilitators and barriers for future implementation of the VHB-EF. Stakeholder input from Veterans and providers (qualitative interviews) will be used to evaluate the VHB-EF and will enable the development of a toolkit for others in the VA to use.

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