NCT07362056

Implementing Suicide Prevention Into Primary Care in Nepal

Integrating a Suicide Prevention Package of Strategies Into Decentralized Primary Health Care Systems: an Implementation Pilot Study in Rural Nepal

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 147 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Yale University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Suicide remains a major contributor to global mortality, with particularly high and persistent rates in low-resourced settings such as South Asia. In Nepal, ongoing integration of mental health services into primary care provides a critical opportunity to strengthen suicide risk assessment and management. Despite the scale-up of mhGAP training for primary care providers (PCPs), gaps remain in the systematic detection, referral, and follow-up of individuals at risk for suicide. There is an urgent need to enhance mhGAP implementation with strategies that address provider workload, stigma, and inequities within the health workforce. Using experience-based co-design principles and RE-AIM this study will assess the feasibility and acceptability of integrating an implementation strategy package to optimize mhGAP suicide prevention delivery in Nepal's decentralized primary healthcare system. This clinical trial leverages deep collaboration with a community advisory board of individuals with lived experience of suicide throughout the trials' design, delivery and analysis. This R34 will generate critical preliminary evidence on the feasibility, acceptability, and implementation of an integrated suicide prevention package within government primary care facilities in Nepal. The findings will inform the design and parameters of a future fully powered effectiveness trial, while aligning with Nepal's national suicide prevention strategy and advancing WHO and NIMH global mental health priorities.

Conditions

• Suicide
• Primary Care

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Suicide Prevention Package (PSuPP)	Implementation package to optimize mhGAP siucide prevention delivery which includes: \[assessment optimization\] systematic assessment training using systematized screening questions, an embedded decision-support tool, \[risk management optimization\] culturally adapted safety planning, and \[follow up care optimization\] a collaborative care protocol with CHWs to support patient follow-up uptake and continued care.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-11-15
• Primary completion: 2027-07-15
• Completion: 2027-08-15
• First posted: 2026-01-23
• Last updated: 2026-01-23

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Nepal