Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology
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J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol · Mar 2015
Identifying adolescents at highly elevated risk for suicidal behavior in the emergency department.
The feasibility and concurrent validity of adolescent suicide risk screening in medical emergency departments (EDs) has been documented. The objectives of this short-term prospective study of adolescents who screened positive for suicide risk in the ED were: 1) to examine adolescents' rate of suicidal behavior during the 2 months following their ED visits and compare it with reported rates for psychiatric samples; and 2) to identify possible predictors of acute risk for suicidal behavior in this at-risk sample. ⋯ In this study, use of a higher screen threshold (multiple suicide risk factors) showed promise for identifying highly elevated acute risk for suicidal behavior.