Citation

Berman NC, Stark A, Cooperman A, Wilhelm S, Glenn Cohen I. Death Stud. 2015; 39(7): 433-441.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital , Harvard Medical School , Boston , MA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/07481187.2014.958630

PMID

25674940

Abstract

The present study examined how patient risk factors and clinician demographics predict the assessment of suicide risk. Clinicians (N = 333) read two vignettes, one of which manipulated patient risk factors, then rated the patient's likelihood of suicide and need for hospitalization. Clinicians' assessments were heterogeneous.

RESULTS indicated that certain patient risk factors (access to excess medication) and clinician demographics (relationship status, religiosity) predicted perceived suicide risk; and moreover, clinicians' suicide risk assessment did not always align with the decision to hospitalize the patient. We discuss methods for standardizing clinicians' judgment of risk and minimizing error through debiasing strategies (cognitive forcing strategy).

Language: en