Acute and intensive care nurses' perspectives on suicide prevention with medically hospitalized patients: Exploring barriers, facilitators, interests, and training opportunities.

AIMS: To explore opportunities for acute and intensive care nurses to engage in suicide prevention activities with patients hospitalized for medical, surgical or traumatic injury reasons. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive study. METHODS: We conducted two studies consisting of 1-h focus groups with nurses. Study 1 occurred prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic during January and February of 2020 and identified barriers and facilitators of engaging in an eLearning training in suicide safety planning and engaging patients on their units in suicide safety planning. Study 2 occurred in December of 2020 and explored nurses' perspectives on their role in suicide prevention with patients on their units and training needs related to this. The research took place at an urban level 1 trauma center and safety net hospital where nurses universally screen all admitted patients for suicide risk. We conducted a rapid analysis of the focus group transcripts using a top-down, framework-driven approach to identify barriers, facilitators, strategies around barriers, and training interests mentioned. RESULTS: Twenty-seven registered nurses participated. Nurses indicated they serve a population in need of suicide prevention and that the nursing role is an important part of suicide care. A primary barrier was having adequate uninterrupted time for suicide prevention activities and training; however, nurses identified various strategies around barriers and offered suggestions to make training successful. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest training in suicide prevention is important for nurses in this context and there are opportunities for nurses to engage patients in interventions beyond initial screening; however, implementation will require tailoring interventions and training to accommodate nurses' workload in the hospital context. IMPACT: Acute and intensive care nurses play a key role in the public health approach to suicide prevention. Understanding perspectives of bedside nurses is critical for guiding development and deployment of effective brief interventions. NO PUBLIC OR PATIENT INVOLVEMENT: This study is focused on eliciting and exploring perspectives of acute and intensive care nurses.

Harnessing Innovative Technologies to Train Nurses in Suicide Safety Planning With Hospital Patients: Formative Acceptability Evaluation of an eLearning Continuing Education Training.

BACKGROUND: Suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the United States. Health care provider training is a top research priority identified by the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention; however, evidence-based approaches that target skill building are resource intensive and difficult to implement. Novel computer technologies harnessing artificial intelligence are now available, which hold promise for increasing the feasibility of providing trainees opportunities across a range of continuing education contexts to engage in skills practice with constructive feedback on performance. OBJECTIVE: This pilot study aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of an eLearning training in suicide safety planning among nurses serving patients admitted to a US level 1 trauma center for acute or intensive care. The training included a didactic portion with demonstration, practice of microcounseling skills with a web-based virtual patient (Client Bot Emily), role-play with a patient actor, and automated coding and feedback on general counseling skills based on the role-play via a web-based platform (Lyssn Advisor). Secondarily, we examined learning outcomes of knowledge, confidence, and skills in suicide safety planning descriptively. METHODS: Acute and intensive care nurses were recruited between November 1, 2021, and May 31, 2022, to participate in a formative evaluation using pretraining, posttraining, and 6-month follow-up surveys, as well as observation of the nurses' performance in delivering suicide safety planning via standardized patient role-plays over 6 months and rated using the Safety Plan Intervention Rating Scale. Nurses completed the System Usability Scale after interacting with Client Bot Emily and reviewing general counseling scores based on their role-play via Lyssn Advisor. RESULTS: A total of 18 nurses participated in the study; the majority identified as female (n=17, 94%) and White (n=13, 72%). Of the 17 nurses who started the training, 82% (n=14) completed it. On average, the System Usability Scale score for Client Bot Emily was 70.3 (SD 19.7) and for Lyssn Advisor was 65.4 (SD 16.3). On average, nurses endorsed a good bit of knowledge (mean 3.1, SD 0.5) and confidence (mean 2.9, SD 0.5) after the training. After completing the training, none of the nurses scored above the expert-derived cutoff for proficiency on the Safety Plan Intervention Rating Scale (≥14); however, on average, nurses were above the cutoffs for general counseling skills per Lyssn Advisor (empathy: mean 4.1, SD 0.6; collaboration: mean 3.6, SD 0.7). CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest the completion of the training activities and use of novel technologies within this context are feasible. Technologic modifications may enhance the training acceptability and utility, such as increasing the virtual patient conversational abilities and adding automated coding capability for specific suicide safety planning skills. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.2196/33695.