Research paperVariability in suicidal ideation: A better predictor of suicide attempts than intensity or duration of ideation?
Section snippets
Participants
Participants (60% female; mean age = 19.3, SD = 3.06) were selected from introductory psychology classes and received course credit for their participation. Individuals were selected for participation following a screening with the Beck Suicide Scale (BSS; Beck and Steer, 1993), which includes an item assessing past suicide attempts. Participant selection occurred in two waves. In the first wave, all participants who responded to screening criteria were enrolled, regardless of attempt history. The
Discussion
We demonstrated that variability is an important parameter of suicidal ideation, and it provides better predictive power in terms of previous attempt status relative to that provided by intensity or duration. Perhaps this is because variability contains aspects of both intensity and duration in addition to some other component, which is likely to be mood lability.
Crucially, however, the relation between attempt status and variability in suicidal ideation appears to be more important for male
References (20)
- et al.
Suicidal attempts among older adolescents: prevalence and co-occurrence with psychiatric disorders
J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psych.
(1992) - et al.
Parameters of suicidal crises vary as a function of previous suicide attempts in youth inpatients
J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psych.
(2000) - et al.
On the meaning and measurement of affective instability: clues from chaos theory
Soc. Biol. Psychiatry
(1999) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(1994)- et al.
Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation
(1993) - et al.
Suicide ideation at its worst point: a predictor of eventual suicide in psychiatric outpatients
Suicide Life-Threat. Behav.
(1999) - et al.
Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral and Life Sciences
(1983) - et al.
Suicide Probability Scale Manual
(1995) - et al.
Structured Clinical Interview for Axis I DSM-IV Disorders—Patient Edition (SCID-I/P, Version 2.0)
(1994) - et al.
The affective lability scales: development, reliability, and validity
J. Clin. Psychol.
(1989)