Development and Initial Validation of a Scale Assessing Suicide-Specific Rumination: The Suicide Rumination Scale

Abstract

Suicide-specific rumination, a repetitive mental fixation on one’s suicidal thoughts and intentions, may influence the transition from suicidal thoughts to behaviors. Research on suicide-specific rumination has been hindered by the lack of an independent measurement tool. This article presents the development and validation of a self-report measure of suicide-specific rumination across several samples with lifetime suicidal ideation (Sample 1: N = 494 students; Sample 2: N = 219 community members; Sample 3: N = 128 adults at high risk for suicide). The Suicide Rumination Scale (SRS) item pool was reduced from a pool of 41 items to 8 items that are highly discriminant and of varying levels of difficulty. The SRS demonstrated measurement invariance, convergent validity, and nonredundancy with related measures. Importantly, the SRS differentiated suicide attempters from ideators, suggesting its potential clinical relevance. Overall, these findings suggest that the SRS is a valid and incrementally useful measure of suicide-specific rumination.

Revised Attentional Fixation on Suicide Experiences Questionnaire and its relationship with suicidal ideation and behavior: A cross‐sectional study

“…Future research is needed to compare attentional fixation to suicide‐specific rumination and other forms of negative repetitive thinking. For example, four of the eight items on the Suicide Rumination Scale (SRS, Rogers, Gallyer, & Joiner, 2021, Rogers, Law, et al, 2021) assess controllability or lack thereof (e.g., “When I have thoughts of suicide, I cannot ‘turn off’ these thoughts”), which may overlap with items on the AFSEQ‐R (e.g., “I felt like my thoughts were out of my control”). The AFSEQ‐R also includes items reflecting the belief that suicide was the only option (e.g., “This was the only way”), suggesting attentional fixation may reflect a combination of lack of controllability and poor problem‐solving.…”

“…A recent study utilized these two factors as subscales and reported that Cognitive Stuckness, but not Cognitive Dysfunction, partially mediated the relationship between suicide‐specific cognitions and worst‐point SI (Moscardini et al, 2020). A related construct, suicide‐specific rumination , which refers to perseveration specifically on suicidal thoughts and plans (Rogers, Law, et al, 2021), has shown a stronger correlation with lifetime number of SAs than SI (Rogers & Joiner, 2018) and predicted suicidal intent 3 days later (Rogers, Gallyer, & Joiner, 2021). Rogers, Law, et al (2021) hypothesized that suicide‐specific rumination may reflect perseveration more generally at various levels of suicidal risk, while attentional fixation may be more proximal to a suicidal crisis.…”

“…A related construct, suicide‐specific rumination , which refers to perseveration specifically on suicidal thoughts and plans (Rogers, Law, et al, 2021), has shown a stronger correlation with lifetime number of SAs than SI (Rogers & Joiner, 2018) and predicted suicidal intent 3 days later (Rogers, Gallyer, & Joiner, 2021). Rogers, Law, et al (2021) hypothesized that suicide‐specific rumination may reflect perseveration more generally at various levels of suicidal risk, while attentional fixation may be more proximal to a suicidal crisis. Additional research exploring attentional fixation on suicide is warranted to better understand its role in SAs.…”

“… 1 1 The Suicide Rumination Scale (SRS; Rogers, Law, et al, 2021) was not published at the time of data collection to be able to evaluate its correlation with the AFSEQ‐R. …”

Development and Validation of the Repetitive Negative Thoughts Questionnaire (RNTQ)

“…Similarly, a measure of suicide-specific rumination was recently developed (Rogers, Law, … et al, 2021). Several measures of rumination have been developed in the context of PTSD (e.g., night-time rumination; Woodward et al, 2019), though findings from a recent systematic review suggest that the measurement of rumination within PTSD has been largely dependent on measures developed within a depression-specific context, namely the RRS (Moulds et al, 2020).…”