Task-Shifting: Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy by Youth Mentors for Latinx Youth Suicide Prevention

Boston College, Chestnut Hill MA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

SUMMARY ABSTRACT In the last ten years, Latinx youth reports of poor mental health (30%), sadness, hopelessness (46%), and suicide ideation (22%) have significantly increased. Suicide ideation is a risk factor for suicide attempts and death by suicide. Key risk factors for suicide ideation among Latinx youth include depression symptoms, low sense of belongingness, and feeling a burden to others. Structural factors, such as low access to care, even when they report suicide behaviors, place them at high risk. Latinx youth are often uninsured and mistrust healthcare providers. Given that one in four youth younger than age 18 in the United States is Latinx, increasing access to care before suicide behaviors onset in this population will make a public health impact. Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Adolescents (IPT-A; 12-16 sessions), an effective evidence-based intervention tested with Latinx youth, improves interpersonal functioning and, in turn, reduces depressive symptoms and suicide ideation. Brief IPT-A (BIPT-A; 6-8 sessions) integrated into community settings and delivered by lay providers (i.e., task-shifting) offers an opportunity to be used as an upstream suicide approach (before suicide behaviors onset) and close the Latinx youth mental health access gap. However, research is needed to examine the feasibility and acceptability of BIPT-A task-shifted to youth community centers where Latinx youth learn and play. This K23 proposes a comprehensive career development plan to enable the candidate to become an independent clinical investigator with expertise in implementation science and a recognized leader in community capacity-building to prevent youth suicide by focusing on three main training goals: 1) Develop expertise in systematically adapting interventions, 2) develop expertise in the use of task-shifting in suicide prevention, and 3) gain skills in conducting pragmatic, randomized trials to test implementation strategies and mechanisms of change pertaining to youth suicide ideation among Latinx youth. Leveraging existing partnerships with three youth community centers, the proposed study aims to 1) Adapt BIPT-A for its use by lay providers (i.e., youth mentors) in community centers to decrease depression symptoms, increase belongingness, and decrease burdensomeness among Latinx youth with threshold score for depression (Aim 1). 2) Train youth mentors in the adapted BIPT-A (Aim 2). 3) Conduct a pilot pragmatic randomized trial to test feasibility, acceptability, and mechanisms of change of BIPT-A task-shifted to youth mentors (Aim 3). This K23 addresses NIMH's strategic plan by investigating the adaptation and implementation of an evidence-based mental health intervention in real-world settings with ethnic minoritized populations that has the potential to be used as a preventive approach to suicide, build community capacity, and increase mental health equity.