Online Suicide-Focused Treatment: The Telehealth Use of CAMS

Abstract

The arrival of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic rather suddenly forced mental health professionals to make rapid changes to treatment delivery in order to provide clinical care using online approaches such as teletherapy. As a leading cause of death, the need to effectively treat people who are suicidal is ever present. With evidence of increasing risk of serious suicidal thoughts – potentially related to the pandemic – mental health providers have been compelled to work with individuals who are suicidal through online platforms. While not explicitly prohibited, major professional organizations historically had discouraged online remote treatment of people who are suicidal. Mental health providers and suicide prevention researchers thus had to identify ethical and appropriate ways of treating suicidal risk remotely. The Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS), an evidence-based suicide-focused treatment, was one such intervention converted to online use. This chapter will describe the authors’ experiences of converting the use of face-to-face CAMS to telehealth platforms in randomized controlled trials and within a university psychology clinic. Additional information about other suicide-specific interventions’ use via telehealth will also be briefly described. Various lessons learned and suggestions for effectively training, and delivery of CAMS online are shared, and the future of online training and delivery of suicide-focused care is discussed.