Citation

Beck AT, Brown GK, Steer RA, Dahlsgaard KK, Grisham JR. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 1999; 29(1): 1-9.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10322616

Abstract

Scales for measuring current suicide ideation (SSI-C), suicide ideation at its worst point in the patient's life (SSI-W), and hopelessness (BHS) were administered to 3,701 outpatients seeking psychiatric treatment. Thirty patients from this sample eventually committed suicide, within a mean of 4 years from the initial assessment. Based on cut-off scores derived from receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, the SSI-W had an odds ratio of 13.84 for predicting suicide, whereas the SSI-C and the BHS had odds ratios of 5.42 and 6.43, respectively. The assessment of suicide ideation at its worst point identifies a subgroup of patients at relatively high risk for eventual suicide. Robust interventions and periodic monitoring for suicide ideation and hopelessness are recommended to reduce long-term suicide risk.