Citation

Chase Berman N, Sullivan A, Wilhelm S, Cohen IG. Death Stud. 2015; 40(1): 61-67.

Affiliation

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

Copyright

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

DOI

10.1080/07481187.2015.1068248

PMID

26207570

Abstract

The present study evaluates how liability influences mental health clinicians' assessment of suicide risk. In this online vignette-based experiment, clinicians (N = 268) were either primed with a legal standard prior to a case vignette or presented the case vignette alone. Clinicians then rated the patient's likelihood of suicide and need for hospitalization.

RESULTS indicated that trainees provided significantly lower ratings of suicide risk following presentation of the legal standard, but this was not associated with hospitalization endorsement.

RESULTS have training and legal implications for improving the accuracy of suicide risk assessment in both trainees and licensed professionals.

Language: en