Citation

Jobes D, Brancu M, Lineberry TW, Varghese R. Psychiatr. Danub. 2006; 18(Suppl 1): 54.

Affiliation

Catholic University, Department of Psychology, 20064 Washington DC, USA. jobes@cua.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16963936

Abstract

This study investigated potential discrepancies between clinical impressions of suicidal risk when compared to risk that is determined by purely 'objective' empirically-based suicide risk variables. The study examined data obtained from 80 suicidal patients who were hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN in the USA. The Suicide Status Form (SSF) developed by Jobes et al (1997) was the primary measure; demographics, BDI scores, DSM diagnoses, and previous attempt history data were also obtained. A pair of experienced clinicians rank ordered the cases from low to high risk based only on qualitative content responses to the SSF (i.e., the idiosyncratic suicidal content of written patient responses) with high inter-rater reliability (Kappa's >0.80). A composite risk scale was then derived in order to rank the same cases from low to high risk based only on empirically-based risk variables (i.e., gender, age, diagnosis, attempt history, and BDI scores). The potential concordance or discordance between these two methods of evaluating and rank-ordering potential suicide risk will be examined. In addition, the clinical and research significance of this investigation will be discussed.

Language: en