Brief face-to-face interventions designed to prevent suicide result in fewer suicide attempts and also improve the chance of follow-up with a mental health clinician, a US meta-analysis suggests.

Such interventions, however, do not help reduce depression symptoms measured on follow-up 2-3 months later, the authors write in JAMA Psychiatry.

Their meta-analysis included 14 studies (12 carried out in the US) in which a total of 4270 people with an identified suicide risk who had a single-encounter intervention to prevent suicide were compared with others who did not have such an encounter.

The nature of the encounters varied between studies, but contained at least one of: safety planning, care co-ordination, brief contacts by phone, text, letter or brief therapies.