Psychometric properties of the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation: a Norwegian study with university students

This study presents the psychometric properties of the Norwegian language version of the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSI). The participants were 314 university students (71 males and 243 females) enrolled in one of the introductory courses in psychology or sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. The results revealed satisfactory internal consistency and good temporal stability. Moderately high correlations with other measures of suicide ideation suggested satisfactory concurrent validity. Similarly, the construct validity was evidenced by moderate correlations among the BSI, the Hopkins Symptom Check List (HSCL-25) depressive scale, and the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS). In general, the findings suggest that the BSI is a reliable and valid instrument to assess severity of suicide ideation in college students.