Assessment of Suicidal Intention: The Scale for Suicide Ideation

The rationale, development & validation of the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI) is described. The scale was found to have high internal consistency & moderately high correlations with clinical ratings of suicidal risk & self-administered measures of self-harm. It was sensitive to changes in levels of depression & hopelessness over time. Factor analysis yielded 3 significant factors: active suicidal desire, specific plans for suicide & passive suicidal desire.