Published in:
Open Access 01-12-2008 | Research article
Detecting suicidality among adolescent outpatients: evaluation of trained clinicians' suicidality assessment against a structured diagnostic assessment made by trained raters
Published in: BMC Psychiatry | Issue 1/2008
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Background
Accurate assessment of suicidality is of major importance. We aimed to evaluate trained clinicians' ability to assess suicidality against a structured assessment made by trained raters.
Method
Treating clinicians classified 218 adolescent psychiatric outpatients suffering from a depressive mood disorder into three classes: 1-no suicidal ideation, 2-suicidal ideation, no suicidal acts, 3-suicidal or self-harming acts. This classification was compared with a classification with identical content derived from the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS-PL) made by trained raters. The convergence was assessed by kappa- and weighted kappa tests.
Results
The clinicians' classification to class 1 (no suicidal ideation) was 85%, class 2 (suicidal ideation) 50%, and class 3 (suicidal acts) 10% concurrent with the K-SADS evaluation (γ2 = 37.1, df 4, p = 0.000). Weighted kappa for the agreement of the measures was 0.335 (CI = 0.198–0.471, p < 0.0001). The clinicians under-detected suicidal and self-harm acts, but over-detected suicidal ideation.
Conclusion
There was only a modest agreement between the trained clinicians' suicidality evaluation and the K-SADS evaluation, especially concerning suicidal or self-harming acts. We suggest a wider use of structured scales in clinical and research settings to improve reliable detection of adolescents with suicidality.