PROJECT SUMMARY
Despite unprecedented suicide prevention efforts undertaken in the last decade, suicide rates among veterans and
military service members remain elevated relative to the pre-9/11 era, highlighting the need for improved development
and implementation of scientifically supported interventions for this at-risk population. This project will develop an
online, interactive Virtual Standardized Patient (VSP) to train providers within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to
administer the brief suicide Safety Planning Intervention (SPI). Research has demonstrated the SPI to be an acceptable,
feasible, and effective intervention for veterans at elevated risk of suicide. However, training to conduct the SPI has
been limited and no currently available training provides the opportunity for behavioral rehearsal and interactive
practice in an online format available at the convenience of the provider. The current proposal will develop a VSP using
best practices in user-centered design to create a standardized training tool to assist providers in developing clinical
skills to more effectively implement the SPI. The project will include a two-phase study. Phase I will include a formative
evaluation to inform the design of the VSP with SPI specific content and will involve iterative revisions based on user-
centered design feedback from VA healthcare providers (N = 10). Once the final version of the VSP is completed, it will
be evaluated in a mixed methods pilot study with 30 VA healthcare providers to examine changes in provider SPI clinical
skills, knowledge, confidence, and self-efficacy (phase II). This evaluation of the VSP will encourage future research and
dissemination of this novel training tool, if effective. The resulting VSP will be cost-effective and highly scalable, and will
require only a desktop computer with Internet access to run. The VSP will be developed to target training for a wide
range of providers, not just those in mental health. Similarly, the technology will be developed such that it could be
disseminated to providers who work with veteran and non-veteran patients outside of the VA. This training tool will be
useful for providers initially learning the SPI, as well as those who wish to refresh their skills. Our proposal brings
together two teams (VA Puget Sound and the USC Institute for Creative Technologies) with a history of high impact
mental health technology development. These teams have unique, and complementary, expertise in order to
successfully execute this proposal. Results have the potential to make a substantial impact on the VA healthcare system
and its at-risk patients. Next steps will include a fully powered randomized controlled trial to examine the efficacy of the
developed VSP on provider behaviors (clinical skills) and patient outcomes, followed by dissemination of the VSP to
other VA and non-VA sites, if efficacious.