Senior Data Analyst/ PhD student Boston University School of Public Health Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Abstract : Research aims: Household presence of lethal means, such as firearms and medications, is associated with suicide death. Numerous studies have demonstrated the acceptability and effectiveness of Lethal Means Safety (LMS) interventions in reducing lethal means access across populations. However, evaluation of providing LMS locking devices among Veterans remains limited. The Veteran Crisis Line (VCL) LMS Pilot offered cable gun locks or medication take-back envelopes to Veteran callers at risk of suicide. We aimed to assess the acceptability of offering LMS interventions to these Veterans and examine call outcomes, healthcare use, and mortality of Veterans associated with intervention acceptance.
Methods: Our analyses included calls from eligible Veterans who contacted the VCL between June 13, 2022 and March 31, 2023. We used inverse probability of treatment weights to balance Veteran characteristics and examined the association between intervention acceptance and Veteran outcomes.
Results: Our results showed that over 40% of Veterans identified as Veteran Health Administration enrollees accepted the intervention after being offered one, a rate three times higher than that of non-identified Veterans. Additionally, Veterans who were offered any intervention, regardless of acceptance, had a lower risk of having an emergency dispatch than those not offered one. Among Veterans who were offered an LMS intervention, we did not observe any changes in call outcomes, health care use, SREs, or mortality associated with acceptance of the intervention.
Conclusions: Our evaluation suggests that LMS interventions are acceptable to at-risk Veterans. Further evaluation is needed to determine whether acceptance of an intervention has any long-term impacts on Veteran outcomes.
