iKinnect2.0 for Juvenile Justice Involved Youth at Risk for Suicide

Plain-language summary

This study is a 16-week intent-to-treat randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 120 suicidal juvenile justice (JJ)-involved transition-age (TA) youth (age 15-21 years) and a primary caregiver (dyads). Dyads will be randomly assigned to iKinnect2.0 (n=60 dyads) or Life360 (control app) plus an electronic suicide resources brochure (n=60 dyads). This design will test iKinnect2.0's new features for suicide prevention against TA youth awareness of and access to high-quality suicide prevention resources, while simultaneously testing features relating to conduct problems and parent management against parents knowing the TA youth's whereabouts in real-time and controlling for dyad member engagement in technology (Life360). Participants will be assessed at baseline, 4, 8 and 16 weeks. Primary youth-reported outcomes relating to suicide risk include: Suicidal behaviors (ideation, planning, attempts), non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors, self-efficacy in coping with distress, and use of imminent distress coping strategies (behavioral skills, use of crisis stabilization plan). Youth will also report on their criminal behavior. Primary caregiver-reported outcome variables relating to youth suicide include: Self-efficacy in applying family-based suicide-prevention strategies and reported use of those strategies; caregivers will also report on their own functioning (efficacy/confidence in parenting skills, life stress), TA youth functioning (internalizing and externalizing symptoms), parental management behaviors (expectation clarity, parental monitoring, discipline effectiveness/consistency, use of rewards), and parent-youth relationship quality (communication, conflict, support). App satisfaction and use of technology outcomes (i.e., degree of app usage, features used) will be examined and reported descriptively.

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