Assessment of suicide risk: some limitations in the prediction of infrequent events

Efforts to predict suicide and attempted suicide generally have yielded equivocal results. Neither single signs, standard psychological tests, specially devised tests, clinical judgments nor scales are found to be able to predict suicide at useful levels. Prediction of suicide is hampered by the relative rarity of this behavior together with the inadequate specificity of clinical characteristics and antecedent events. No highly unique descriptive attributes of suicide committers have been discovered. Within these existing limitations, a set of potential predictor variables are presented that may result in improved prediction of suicidal risk.