Identification of Imminent Suicide Risk Among Young Adults Using Text Messages

Overview

Journal Proc SIGCHI Conf Hum Factor Comput Syst

Date 2019 Apr 5

PMID 30944915

Citations 14

Authors

Alicia L Nobles

Jeffrey J Glenn

Kamran Kowsari

Bethany A Teachman

Laura E Barnes

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young adults but the challenges of preventing suicide are significant because the signs often seem invisible. Research has shown that clinicians are not able to reliably predict when someone is at greatest risk. In this paper, we describe the design, collection, and analysis of text messages from individuals with a history of suicidal thoughts and behaviors to build a model to identify periods of suicidality (i.e., suicidal ideation and non-fatal suicide attempts). By reconstructing the timeline of recent suicidal behaviors through a retrospective clinical interview, this study utilizes a prospective research design to understand if text communications can predict periods of suicidality versus depression. Identifying subtle clues in communication indicating when someone is at heightened risk of a suicide attempt may allow for more effective prevention of suicide.

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