Instruments for Suicide Risk Assessment
Summary and conclusions
SBU Yellow Report No. 242
Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment
September 23, 2015
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Identifying individuals at risk of future suicide or suicide attempts is of clinical importance. However, suicidal behaviour is complex and difficult to predict. Instruments have been developed to facilitate the assessment of the risk of future suicidal acts.
Conclusions
None of the included studies provided scientific evidence to support that any instrument had sufficient accuracy to predict future suicide with 80% sensitivity and 50% specificity.
There is strong evidence to support that the SAD PERSONS Scale has very low sensitivity. Most persons who make future suicidal acts are not identified.
Research is needed to clarify if assessment of suicide risk is enhanced when an instrument is used as a complement to the global clinical assessment. To date such research is lacking.
More research is needed to clarify the reliability of the commonly used instruments SUAS and C-SSRS.
As of yet there are no studies that assess whether the suicide item of the Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) can predict suicidal acts.
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Bookshelf ID: NBK350492, PMID: 27030859
