title: A Controlled Trial Using Natural Language Processing to Examine the Language of Suicidal Adolescents in the Emergency Department.
abstract: What adolescents say when they think about or attempt suicide influences the medical care they receive. Mental health professionals use teenagers' words, actions, and gestures to gain insight into their emotional state and to prescribe what they believe to be optimal care. This prescription is often inconsistent among caregivers, however, and leads to varying outcomes. This variation could be reduced by applying machine learning as an aid in clinical decision support. We designed a prospective clinical trial to test the hypothesis that machine learning methods can discriminate between the conversation of suicidal and nonsuicidal individuals. Using semisupervised machine learning methods, the conversations of 30 suicidal adolescents and 30 matched controls were recorded and analyzed. The results show that the machines accurately distinguished between suicidal and nonsuicidal teenagers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: John P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Pestian
authors.affiliation: Division of Emergency Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grupp-Phelan
authors.affiliation: Computational Bioscience Program, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bretonnel Cohen
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychiatry, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Meyers
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychiatry, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Linda A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Richey
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Pawel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Matykiewicz
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychiatry, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Michael T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Sorter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000069550:Machine Learning; D008297:Male; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D059020:Suicidal Ideation; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior