Problems in Suicide Risk Assessment (IN: Suicide: Understanding and Responding: Harvard Medical School Perspectives, ed. by D Jacobs and H N Brown)

Discusses the assessment of suicide potential including the nature of assessment; approaches to assessment (direct & indirect clinical inquiry, scales of suicide risk, & dynamic & biological approaches); & pitfalls in risk assessment such as the clinician’s feelings, strengths of the patient, having a limited view of etiology, cultural disparity, & failure to document. 44 refs. (LH)