Citation

Larzelere RE, Andersen JJ, Ringle JL, Jorgensen DD. Death Stud. 2004; 28(9): 809-827.

Affiliation

Girls and Boys Town, Boys Town, Nebraska, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

15493076

Abstract

This study documents the initial reliability and validity of the Child Suicide Risk Assessment (CSRA) for children under the age of 13. The revised CSRA retained 18 of 20 original items based on item-specific psychometric data from 140 pre-adolescents in out-of-home treatment programs. The CSRA demonstrated adequate internal consistency (alpha=.69) for a multi-dimensional scale (3 factors: Worsening Depression, Lack of Support, and Death as Escape). CSRA scores correlated significantly with criterion measures of prior suicide attempts and ideations. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve discriminated significantly between prior attempters and non-attempters and was used to select preliminary CSRA cut-off scores for identifying substantial suicide risk. The CSRA is the first screening measure of suicide risk in pre-adolescents validated by associations with suicide attempts as well as ideations.