Abstract
Moving beyond self-report: Implicit associations about death/life prospectively predict suicidal behavior among veterans.
Barnes, S., Bahraini, N., Forster, J., Stearns-Yoder, K., Hostetter, T., Smith, G., ... Nock, M.
Reliance on self-report limits clinicians’ ability to accurately predict suicidal behavior. In this study the predictive validity of an objective measure, the death/suicide Implicit Association Test (d/sIAT), was tested among psychiatrically hospitalized veterans. Following acute stabilization, 176 participants completed the d/sIAT and traditional suicide risk assessments. Participants had similar d/sIAT scores regardless of whether they had recently attempted suicide. However, d/sIAT scores significantly predicted suicide attempts during the 6-month follow-up above and beyond other known risk factors for suicidal behavior (OR = 1.89; 95% CI: 1.15–3.12; based on 1SDincrease). The d/sIAT may augment the accuracy of suicide risk assessment.