title: The baby or the bath water? Lessons learned from the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention Research Prioritization Task Force literature review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Research Prioritization Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention conducted a comprehensive literature review of suicide prevention/intervention trials to assess the quality of the scientific evidence.
  
  
  METHODS
  A literature "review of reviews" was conducted by searching the most widely used databases for mental health and public health research. The quality of the reviews was evaluated using the Revised Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews system; the quality of the scientific evidence for the suicide preventions/interventions was assessed using U.S. Preventive Services Task Force criteria. The reviews were limited to peer-reviewed publications with human subjects published in English.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Ninety-eight systematic reviews and 45 primary sources on suicide prevention/interventions published between January 2000 and September 2012 were evaluated. The results suggest that the quality of both the systematic reviews and the scientific evidence for suicide preventions/interventions were mixed. The majority of the systematic reviews and prevention/interventions were evaluated as fair to poor in quality.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are many promising suicide prevention/intervention trials, but research findings are often inconclusive because of methodologic problems. Methodologic problems across systematic reviews include not conducting hand searches, not surveying gray literature, and being unable to aggregate data across studies. Methodologic problems with the scientific quality of the prevention/intervention trials include paucity of information on sample demographic characteristics, poorly defined outcomes, and excluding actively suicidal participants. Suggestions for ways to improve the quality of the systematic reviews and suicide preventions/interventions are provided.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, George Washington University. Electronic address: smolock@gwu.edu.
authors.forename: Sherry
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Davis Molock
authors.affiliation: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Bethesda.
authors.forename: Janet M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Heekin
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Samantha G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Matlin
authors.affiliation: SRA International, Rockville, Maryland.
authors.forename: Crystal L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Barksdale
authors.affiliation: Counseling Center, Howard University, Washington, District of Columbia.
authors.forename: Ekwenzi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.affiliation: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Bethesda.
authors.forename: Chelsea L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Booth
mesh_terms: D026683:Advisory Committees; D006801:Humans; D012106:Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States; D000092864:Suicide Prevention