Safety Planning with Motivational Interviewing for Healthy Coping (MI-SafeCope)

Safety planning (SP) is a brief best-practice intervention designed to help reduce suicidal behavior by developing and outlining adaptive coping strategies to be employed during times of increased distress and suicidal ideation. Individuals work with clinicians to identify personal suicide warning signs (indicating the safety plan should be used), and then a stepwise plan for coping starting with healthy distraction, moving to sources of support, then to professional resources, followed by ensuring a safe environment and identifying reasons for living. However, emerging empirical evidence has indicated that adolescents at risk for suicide often do not use their safety plan during the high-risk period following discharge from psychiatric care.

To address this, Dr. Ewa Czyz and her colleagues developed a version of safety planning called MI-SafeCope by combining SP with another established intervention, Motivational Interviewing (MI). MI-SafeCope integrates SP's strategies with MI's collaborative and directive communication style, aiming to enhance intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. After testing MI-SafeCope with 36 adolescents who had recently been hospitalized for suicidal ideation and behaviors, Dr. Czyz found that the enhanced intervention was both feasible (easy to do) and acceptable. The group of adolescents who were given MI-SafeCope showed higher self-efficacy to refrain from suicidal action, greater self-reliance for coping with suicidal ideation, and higher likelihood of using their safety plan to manage suicidal thoughts.

Citation: Micol, V. J., Prouty, D., & Czyz, E. K. (2022). Enhancing motivation and self-efficacy for safety plan use: Incorporating motivational interviewing strategies in a brief safety planning intervention for adolescents at risk for suicide. Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.), 59(2), 174–180. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000374