Suicide Risk Assessment: A new look at an old tool and why it remains essential

Short Takes on Suicide Prevention

For episode 100 we are going back to our guest from episode one, Dr. Peter Gutierrez. That first episode was Risk Factors, Warning Signs, and Drivers of Suicide and is a great introduction for someone coming into the clinical field of suicide prevention. In it Pete says, “Think of warning signs and risk factors as a map; drivers are the specific route your patient is traveling.”

In episode 100 we bring Pete back because of a paper that recently came out, “Investigating the reliability of suicide attempt history reporting across five measures: A study of US military service members at risk of suicide.” The paper can be read for free here.

We brought Pete in to discuss a specific aspect of the paper – do any of the 5 suicide risk assessment measures predict future suicide attempts? And, drum roll please, the answer is no, not really.

The real gem and take away of this podcast, however, each measure is a great tool to help the patient and clinician focus in on how the patient is doing week to week and are treatment goals being met. Each tool will help the patient and clinician decide what to work on now and then measure how much progress is (or isn’t) being made.

So, clinicians keep doing your good work and seeing the possibilities in preventing suicide.