No abstract

Results support Shneidman's assertion that other psychological factors, such as depression and hopelessness, are only important to suicide insofar as their relationship with psychache, and that psychache and suicide ideation co-vary over time.

Previous research has shown that suicide risk is highest in the year after people have been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. As such, identifying predictors of suicide within this time frame is important. Results from a systematic database search showed that all significant suicide predictors--those found in more than one study--could be grouped into factors related to suicidality, patient care factors, and demographic and psychopathological factors. Increased knowledge of suicide predictors for this particularly high-risk time, identified in this review, can help inform prevention and intervention efforts that may significantly reduce suicide rates.

The current research evaluates the effectiveness and relative merits of 3 screening measures (the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the Psychache Scale) in evaluating preexisting suicide risk factors for a sample of 7,522 undergraduate students. All measures demonstrated significant diagnostic accuracy for indicating suicide ideation, previous single and multiple suicide attempts, and a recent suicide attempt, which are all serious risk factors for subsequent death by suicide in university students. However, the Psychache Scale displayed superior performance in accurately identifying suicide risk compared with both the Beck Depression Inventory-II and the Beck Hopelessness Scale. Identifying students most at risk for suicide requires diagnostically efficient measures, thus preliminary cut-scores for identifying at-risk students are provided.

Construct validity evidence for measures of depression, hopelessness, and psychache was evaluated with 2,974 undergraduates. Analyses indicated three dimensions each contributing to statistically predicting suicide ideation. Contribution patterns supported the differential validity of these dimensions. Whereas hopelessness most strongly contributed to suicide motivation, psychache contributed most strongly to suicide preparation.