- Title
- Effectiveness of the Hunter Way Back Support Service: An historical controlled trial of a brief non-clinical after-care program for hospital-treated deliberate self-poisoning
- Creator
- McGill, Katie; Whyte, Ian M.; Sawyer, Lisa; Adams, Danielle; Delamothe, Katrina; Lewin, Terry J.; Robinson, Jo; Kay-Lambkin, Frances J.; Carter, Gregory L.
- Relation
- Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior Vol. 52, Issue 3, p. 500-514
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12840
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Introduction: Active contact and follow-up interventions have been shown to be effective in reducing repetition of hospital-treated self-harm. The Way Back Support Service (WBSS) is a new service funded by the Australian government to provide three months of non-clinical after-care following a hospital-treated suicide attempt. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of WBSS in reducing deliberate self-poisoning (DSP) and psychiatric hospital admissions over a 12-month follow-up period for a population of DSP patients within the Hunter (Australia) region. Methods: A non-randomized, historical controlled (two periods) trial design with intention-to-treat analyses. Outcome data were drawn from hospital records. Results: There were a total of 2770 participants across study periods. There were no significant differences between cohorts for proportion with any, or number of, re-admissions for DSP in the follow-up period. For psychiatric admissions, the intervention cohort had a non-significantly greater proportion with any psychiatric admission and significantly more admissions compared to one of the control cohorts. Conclusion: The WBSS model of care should be modified to strengthen treatment engagement and retention and to include established, clinical, evidence-based treatments shown to reduce DSP repetition. Any modified WBSS model should be subject to further evaluation.
- Subject
- intervention; non-randomized controlled trial; self-harm; self-poisoning; suicide attempt; Way Back Support Service; SDG 3; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1468121
- Identifier
- uon:48001
- Identifier
- ISSN:0363-0234
- Language
- eng
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