Assessing Suicidal Ideation Using a Brief Self-Report Measure.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Mental Health Assessment

Background:

• Accurate assessment of suicidal ideation is crucial for both clinical practice and research.
• Discrepancies exist between self-report measures and clinical interviews for assessing suicidal thoughts.
• Distinguishing between active and passive suicidal ideation is important for risk stratification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the endorsement rates and psychometric properties of a two-item self-report measure of suicidal ideation.
• To compare this self-report measure against a structured clinical interview.
• To assess the measure's ability to differentiate active from passive suicidal ideation.

Main Methods:

• Participants in an outpatient psychiatry clinic completed a two-item self-report measure assessing passive and active suicidal ideation.
• Following self-report, participants underwent a structured clinical interview for suicidal ideation.
• Agreement, correlations, and predictive values between self-report and interview ratings were analyzed.

Main Results:

• A low level of agreement was observed between the self-report measure and the clinical interview.
• Self-report items showed stronger correlations with same-domain interviewer ratings.
• The measure demonstrated high negative predictive value and moderate-to-low positive predictive value.

Conclusions:

• A two-item self-report measure of suicidal ideation does not strongly align with clinical interview ratings.
• This brief measure may be valuable for identifying the absence of suicidal ideation.
• The measure shows potential for distinguishing between passive and active forms of suicidal ideation.