Psychotherapeutic interventions for suicidal adolescents - a systematic review of the current literature

Although suicidal thoughts and behaviors are common in adolescents, the German guidelines for suicidality in children and adolescents state a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of specific psychotherapies for those patients. The aim of this systematic review was to summarize and critically discuss newest advances in the evaluation of specific therapeutic approaches for suicidality in youths. Building on other recent systematic reviews, 11 manuscripts published between 2013 and 2017 were included in this review. Included are studies on interventions in emergency departments, psychotherapeutic approaches specifically targeting suicidality despite other psychopathology, interventions for youth with specific disorders or risk-factors, and one study evaluating an online-intervention. First positive effects can be claimed for family interventions in emergency departments (regarding lower hospitalization rates) as well as cognitive-behavioral, dialectical-behavioral, and family-oriented interventions (regarding reducing suicidality). Promising results were also found in a pilot study on an online-intervention. However, further research is necessary, as replication of outcomes has not been attempted or published in most cases and studies including large sample sizes with long-term follow-up evaluation are very rare.