Date: March 22, 2024
The first direct empirical test of a long-standing claim: that the SSF — the core assessment instrument within CAMS — is not just a risk assessment tool but a therapeutic intervention in its own right. Working with 57 high-risk patients on an inpatient psychiatric consultation-liaison service at a Level 1 trauma center, the authors used CAMS-Brief Intervention (CAMS-BI) and tracked subjective distress (SUDS) across five time points within each session. Pre-to-post-session distress dropped significantly across patients, with a trend favoring Section A of the SSF.
Authors: Nicolas Oakey-Frost, Emma H. Moscardini, Tovah Cowan, Jessica L. Gerner, Kathleen A. Crapanzano, David A. Jobes, and Raymond P. Tucker.
About the Author
David A. Jobes Ph.D. ABPP
David Jobes, PhD, ABPP, is the founder of CAMS-care, LLC. He began his career in 1987 in the Counseling Center of the Catholic University of America, where he developed a suicide risk assessment tool for college students that evolved into CAMS. Dr. Jobes is now a Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of Clinical Training at Catholic; he has trained thousands of mental health professionals in the United States and abroad in evidence-based assessment and treatment of suicide risk and the use of CAMS.