Pilot Effectiveness Trials of Peer Support Services for Suicide Prevention

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) intends to publish a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to solicit applications for research on the preliminary effectiveness of peer support intervention strategies for reducing suicide risk in clinical and community practice settings. The goal of this pilot phase of effectiveness research is to evaluate the feasibility, tolerability, acceptability, safety, and potential effectiveness of the approach. Key aspects of the opportunity include: • Developing and testing scalable and sustainable peer support interventions in clinical and community practice settings focused on suicide risk reduction • Collaborative investigations combining expertise in peer support models for suicide prevention, intervention development and clinical trials research methodology, and implementation science related to developing and testing suicide prevention strategies • Evaluating the effectiveness of peer support interventions in reducing suicide risk • Obtaining preliminary data needed as a pre-requisite to a larger-scale effectiveness trial designed to definitively test the effectiveness of the intervention