Is a count of suicidal ideation and behavior events useful in assessing global severity of suicidality? A case study

Résumé

textbfOBJECTIVE: Regulatory agencies and suicidality scales have focused on the value of a count of suicidal ideation and behavior events, even though the clinical usefulness and predictive value of the count of events in the global assessment of suicidality is unclear. This case study explores the value of this event count and offers a more sensitive alternative to tracking the count of events. textbfMETHODS: One subject documented her suicidality daily for 366 days. This documentation included the global severity of suicidality, the count of suicidal events, and the time spent experiencing those events. The relationship between both the count of events and the time spent were each compared to the global severity rating. textbfRESULTS: We found the relationship between the time spent experiencing suicidality and the global severity of suicidality was much stronger than the relationship between the count of suicidal events and global severity. textbfCONCLUSION: This case study suggests that tracking the time a patient spends experiencing suicidality may be more clinically useful and may have more value in assessing global severity of suicidality than tracking the count of events of suicidal ideation and behavior. ÉVALUATION-CLINIQUE DÉPISTAGE POTENTIEL-SUICIDAIRE ÉTUDE-CAS PSYCHOMÉTRIE