Reevaluating Suicidal Behaviors: Comparing Assessment Methods to Improve Risk Evaluations

Exposure to suicidal behaviors: A common suicide risk factor or a personal negative life event?

“…Although it may be possible that ESB is a risk factor for young children, here we saw no associations between ESB and suicidality, or validated risk factors, for participants aged 18–20 years. Any inclusion of items in suicide risk measures requires strong validation through appropriate psychometric testing (DeVellis, 2012; Harris et al, 2016; Harris et al, 2015).…”

“…Just as importantly, many of the ‘nonsuicidal’ participants likely experienced suicidal feelings and thoughts, but had not made a recent attempt, and some ‘suicidal’ participants may not have made a suicide attempt with intent to die (Plöderl, Kralovec, Yazdi, & Fartacek, 2011). Recent findings have demonstrated the importance of using validated scales with continuous items to measure suicide risk (Harris, Lello, & Willcox, 2016; Harris et al, 2015).…”

Exploring Cross-Sectional Predictors of Suicide Ideation, Attempt, and Risk in a Large Online Sample of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youth and Young Adults

“…Although several suicide screeners focus exclusively on ideation, 60,61 most appear to integrate both ideation and attempt 62,63 and have been criticized for failing to differentiate between the two. 42,64 In comparison to most studies of suicide with TGNC samples, this study examined a much broader range of crosssectional predictors across three suicide-related outcomes within a large sample. However, a majority of variance in these outcomes was left unexplained (66.8%-76.1%) and even when considered as a group, demographic (7.3%-11.9%), minority stress (17.0%-18.4%), and social support (4.8%-9.2%) factors explained relatively small amounts of variance.…”

Suicide in DSM-5: Current Evidence for the Proposed Suicide Behavior Disorder and Other Possible Improvements

“…There is also the possibility that, without standardized measures, clinicians ask about suicidal behaviors in ways that are pejorative ( 137 ) or in ways that discourage certain people (e.g., ethnic minorities) from accurately reporting ( 48 ). Furthermore, clinicians often disagree about what types of behavior to include in “suicide attempt” vs. “non-suicidal self-injury,” “aborted attempt,” and “interrupted attempt.” These separate concepts have differential impact on suicidal risk ( 50 ), and confusion about their distinctions can have negative impacts on clinical care ( 90 , 138 ). SBD's inclusion would help to create standardized nomenclature, which would improve both assessment of suicide risk and communication of risk between treatment providers ( 120 , 137 ).…”