CAPS: A New Program to Support Early Intervention in Patients at Risk for Suicide

According to research, the majority of individuals who die by suicide have contact with a medical professional within 3 months before their death.¹ In response, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) has launched Clinical Approach to Preventing Suicide: An Introduction (CAPS),² a presentation that is designed to educate primary care and/or emergency health care professionals about their role in suicide prevention. The AFSP urges the medical community as a whole to bring this program to their colleagues by contacting a local AFSP chapter.

The 90-minute presentation can be delivered in-person or virtually and is intended for a broad range of health care professionals, such as physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, who work directly with patients aged 18 years and over, or students in training. CAPS provides an overview of how to identify patients at risk for suicide, brief interventions, and treatment options.

The AFSP's national board vice chair—Lisa Riley, MPH, PA-C, DFAAPA—and the AFSP's chapter leadership council member—Ali Walker, DHSc, PA-C, RRT—worked together with AFSP to develop this program. Riley and Walker, through their own clinical and personal experience with suicide, recognized the need to increase knowledge amongst their peers about how to evaluate and care for their patients.

"Not every clinician or health care professional has the tools to appropriately identify patients who present with suicidal ideation or who are at risk," Riley said. "Through this program, health care providers will learn how to identify suicide risk warning signs, assess suicide risk, and create a patient-driven, collaborative safety plan."

"Patients experiencing suicidal ideation oftentimes seek meaningful connections with their providers and want to feel seen and be heard," Walker said. "Practices like thoughtful history taking, asking directly about suicide, and leveraging brief interventions to promote safety are highlighted to increase recognition and preparedness among treating providers."

Psychiatric Times spoke to Christine Yu Moutier, MD, the chief medical officer of the AFSP, about how this program can benefit psychiatric clinicians: “Developing evidence-based interventions to reduce suicide risk has taken time and more work is certainly needed, but there is now a body of evidence for several clinical care steps with strong enough evidence to roll out at scale. Most of these steps are appropriate for primary care and emergency medicine settings. For psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, even more specialized tools are at our disposal, but these minimum standard elements are important to include in every setting.

CAPS provides an introduction and overview of the basic elements of suicide preventive care in a 90-minute in-person or virtual format. Any clinician could benefit from this new concise, practical overview; however, it was designed with prescribing clinicians in mind in behavioral health, primary care, and emergency medicine settings. For psychiatrists, CAPS would be a succinct primer of the minimum approaches to screening, assessment, safety planning, lethal means counseling, caring communication, patient and family education, and appropriate referrals to specific evidence-based care such as CBT, DBT, and CAMS. A brief overview of medications and their key role in suicide risk and prevention is also included.

Another step for experienced clinicians to consider is to become a CAPS presenter. After completing the CAPS presenter training, clinicians can work with their local AFSP chapter to facilitate the program themselves, enabling wider dissemination within practices and hospitals. This encourages a peer-driven, cascading model of education to spread suicide prevention best practices into clinical workflows.

In the broader public health framework, scientific discoveries with clinical efficacy require an implementation strategy in order to reach patients. The time gap between bench to bedside for new clinical interventions is 17 years on average, and we are in the middle of this kind of translation period now. The AFSP’s funds much of these new discoveries through a robust research grants program. AFSP also serves as a catalyst for implementation. This program is one example of that translation so that research can be put into action to reach patients and potentially save lives that might otherwise be lost to suicide. This clinician training, the newly launched CAPS program, aims to decrease that lag time and translation gap. It also equips clinicians to care for at risk patients effectively and with confidence.”

Learn more about the CAPS program here.

References

1. New program equips medical professionals to support early intervention for patients at risk for suicide. News release. December 3, 2025. Accessed December 15, 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-program-equips-medical-professionals-to-support-early-intervention-for-patients-at-risk-for-suicide-302631411.html

2. Clinical Approach to Preventing Suicide: An Introduction. AFSP. Accessed December 15, 2025. https://afsp.org/clinical-approach-to-preventing-suicide-an-introduction/