An evaluation of the Risk of Suicide Protocol (RoSP)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An evaluation of the Risk of Suicide Protocol (RoSP) in patients known to mental health services living in the community.
IRAS ID
177399
Contact name
Robert Snowden
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 31 days
Research summary
Suicide is a major problem for all mental health services and has very recently become a major focus of concern. We have developed an instrument based on the “structured professional judgment” approach. The Risk of Suicide Protocol (RoSP: Snowden and Gray, 2105) examines 20 risk factors across 4 domains (History, Current Clinical, Current Problems, Current Thinking) to produce a comprehensive risk assessment of a person and to formulate a risk management plan to offset or alleviate suicide risk. We have previously demonstrated the RoSP’s ability to predict suicidal attempts in a high-risk population in an in-patient setting. The aim of the current proposal is to test RoSP’s efficacy in patients known to health services but resident within the community.
Conducting research into suicide and suicide attempts is difficult due ethical reasons. Therefore, we aim to take advantage of data already collected for other purposes. Aneurin Bevin University Health Board (ABUHB) keep a database of all unexpected deaths in people known to mental health services in their region. As part of a recent service evaluation into the value of this database ABUHB has already scored risk factors, including those of the RoSP, based on the patient’s last known contact with services. In order for us to test the efficacy of RoSP we simply need to obtain an anonymised version of this database and analyse RoSP’s its ability to predict outcome (e.g., the cause of death such as suicide versus natural causes). The use of an anonymised database, and that all outcomes have already occurred, means that there are no ethical difficulties with such a research design. Indeed, we have received ethical permission for the use of such anonymised databases in the past for similar research (SPON 1364-4; IRAS 162371).REC name
East of Scotland Research Ethics Service REC 2
REC reference
15/ES/0044
Date of REC Opinion
18 May 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion