ArticleHealth services research2023
Effect of mental health staffing inputs on suicide-related events.
Article in Health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Staff perspectives on implementing dialectical behavior therapy skills groups in the Veterans Health Administration.Psychological services · 2026Article
- Virtual Mental Health Care and Suicide-Related Events.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Mixed-methods formative evaluation of implementing an adapted suicide prevention treatment: Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Groups in the Veterans Health Administration.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Veterans Health Administration Outpatient Psychiatry Staffing Model: Longitudinal Analysis on Mental Health Performance.Journal of general internal medicine · 2023Article
- Effect of mental health staffing inputs on suicide-related events.Health services research · 2023Article
- International recruitment of mental health nurses to the national health service: a challenge for the UK.BMC nursing · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo estimate the effects of changes in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) mental health services staffing levels on suicide-related events among a cohort of Veterans. DATA SOURCES: Data were obtained from the VHA Corporate Data Warehouse, the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration Infrastructure for Clinical Intelligence, the VHA survey of enrollees, and customized VHA databases tracking suicide-related events. Geographic variables were obtained from the Area Health Resources Files and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. STUDY
designWe used an instrumental variables (IV) design with a Heckman correction for non-random partial observability of the use of mental health services. The principal predictor was a measure of provider staffing per 10,000 enrollees. The outcome was the probability of a suicide-related event. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION
methodsData were obtained for a cohort of Veterans who recently separated from active service. PRINCIPAL
findingsFrom 2014 to 2018, the per-pay period probability of a suicide-related event among our cohort was 0.05%. We found that a 1% increase in mental health staffing led to a 1.6 percentage point reduction in suicide-related events. This was driven by the first tertile of staffing, suggesting diminishing returns to scale for mental health staffing.
conclusionsVHA facilities appear to be staffing-constrained when providing mental health care. Targeted increases in mental health staffing would be likely to reduce suicidality.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.