• Peter C Britton, Elizabeth Karras, Tracy Stecker, John Klein, Dev Crasta, Lisa A Brenner, and Wilfred R Pigeon.
• Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention, VA Finger Lakes Healthcare System, Canandaigua, New York; Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York. Electronic address: peter.britton@va.gov.
• Am J Prev Med. 2023 May 1; 64 (5): 658665658-665.

IntroductionCrisis lines are a central component of suicide prevention strategies in the U.S. and for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of calling the Veterans Crisis Line on treatment contact and utilization.MethodsCall records from 599 veterans who called in 2019 were linked with medical records and analyzed in 2020. Multilevel generalized linear modeling examined pre-post changes in treatment contact (yes/no) and utilization (number of days of care).ResultsIn the month after the call, 85% of callers made contact with health care, and 79% made contact with behavioral health care. Callers were more likely to make contact with health care in the month after the call than in the preceding month (AOR=6.27, 95% CI=4.22, 9.32) and more likely to make contact with behavioral health care (AOR=10.21, 95% CI=6.66, 15.67). Days of health care nearly doubled to 4.82, and days of behavioral health care more than doubled to 3.52.ConclusionsAmong veteran callers who are linked to medical records, calling the Veterans Crisis Line may increase contact and utilization of health care and behavioral health care. These findings support crisis lines that are linked with healthcare systems in public health strategies for suicide prevention.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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