Barriers and facilitators to using an app-based tool for suicide safety planning in a psychiatric emergency department: A qualitative descriptive study using the Theoretical Domains Framework and COM-B model

Background

Emergency departments (EDs) play a crucial role in suicide prevention, with evidenced-based safety planning interventions (SPI) playing an important role. Traditional safety plans, which are often paper based, come with challenges (i.e., not easily accessible, or easy to misplace). Digital safety planning tools offer an alternative mode of intervention delivery, but clinical implementation remains limited. Using behavioural change frameworks, we aim to provide insights into the factors influencing app adoption. These insights will be used as a knowledge base to design behavior change strategies to promote the implementation of a SPI app in a psychiatric ED.