Suicidal Intent in Deliberate Self-Harm and the Risk of Suicide: the Predictive Power of the Suicide Intent Scale

Clinical & demographic data on 4156 deliberate self-harm patients presenting to hospital 1993 & 1997 were analyzed. Follow-up information on eventual suicide was available for 2,489 patients. The predictive value of the Beck Suicidal Intent Scale was examined using Receiver Operating Characteristic plots. 30 males & 24 females died by suicide. Despite a robust association between suicidal intent & eventual suicide, the positive predictive value of the scale was low. Predicted probabilities of suicide assigned to individual patients were also low, even for those who eventually died by suicide. The Scale cannot preduct which patients will ultimately die by suicide but the information about intent is still valuable in clinical risk assessment & management. (26 refs.) JA