Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ): a brief instrument for the pediatric emergency department.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med
; 166(12): 1170-6, 2012 Dec.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-23027429
OBJECTIVE: To develop a brief screening instrument to assess the risk for suicide in pediatric emergency department patients. DESIGN: A prospective, cross-sectional instrument-development study evaluated 17 candidate screening questions assessing suicide risk in young patients. The Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire served as the criterion standard. SETTING: Three urban, pediatric emergency departments associated with tertiary care teaching hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: A convenience sample of 524 patients aged 10 to 21 years who presented with either medical/surgical or psychiatric chief concerns to the emergency department between September 10, 2008, and January 5, 2011. MAIN EXPOSURES: Participants answered 17 candidate questions followed by the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood ratios, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curves of the best-fitting combinations of screening questions for detecting elevated risk for suicide. RESULTS: A total of 524 patients were screened (344 medical/surgical and 180 psychiatric). Fourteen of the medical/surgical patients (4%) and 84 of the psychiatric patients (47%) were at elevated suicide risk on the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire. Of the 17 candidate questions, the best-fitting model comprised 4 questions assessing current thoughts of being better off dead, current wish to die, current suicidal ideation, and past suicide attempt. This model had a sensitivity of 96.9% (95% CI, 91.3-99.4), specificity of 87.6% (95% CI, 84.0-90.5), and negative predictive values of 99.7% (95% CI, 98.2-99.9) for medical/surgical patients and 96.9% (95% CI, 89.3-99.6) for psychiatric patients. CONCLUSIONS: A 4-question screening instrument, the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ), with high sensitivity and negative predictive value, can identify the risk for suicide in patients presenting to pediatric emergency departments.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Suicide
/
Mass Screening
/
Surveys and Questionnaires
/
Emergency Service, Hospital
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Etiology_studies
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Observational_studies
/
Prevalence_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
/
Screening_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
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Adult
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Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med
Journal subject:
PEDIATRIA
Year:
2012
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States
Country of publication:
United States