Cited by 162Suicide and Self-Harm StudiesAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesMental Health via Writing

The Predictive Validity of the Beck Depression Inventory Suicide Item

Green, Kelly L., Brown, Gregory K., Jager-Hyman, Shari, Cha, Jason, Steer, Robert A., Beck, Aaron T.·2015·The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The current study examines the predictive validity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) suicide item for death by suicide and suicide attempts. METHOD: The study included 2 samples: (1) 5,200 psychiatric outpatients who were evaluated between 1975 and 1995 and followed prospectively for up to 20 years (all psychiatric diagnoses based on DSM-III and DSM-III-R), and (2) 119 patients who, between 2000 and 2004, participated in a randomized controlled trial of outpatient Cognitive Therapy for Suicide Prevention after a suicide attempt and were followed for 18 months (all psychiatric diagnoses based on DSM-IV-TR). All patients completed structured diagnostic interviews, as well as the BDI and Scale for Suicide Ideation. RESULTS: Cox regression models demonstrated that the BDI suicide item significantly predicted both deaths by suicide (Wald χ(2)1 = 35.67; P < .001 [N = 5,200]) and repeat suicide attempts (Wald χ(2)1 = 8.82; P < .01 [N = 119]), with each successive rating on the item conferring greater risk. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, optimal cutoff scores of 1 and above for suicide and 2 and above for suicide attempts were identified as providing the best balance between sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSIONS: The BDI suicide item is associated with both risk of repeat suicide attempts and death by suicide. The use of the item as a brief, efficient screen for suicide risk in routine clinical care is recommended. Clinicians would then conduct a comprehensive suicide risk assessment in response to a positive screen. Future research examining the item's performance in other at-risk groups (ie, older adults, adolescents, inpatients, etc) is encouraged.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.4088/jcp.14m09391

Cites

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Still being checked.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Green, K. L., Brown, G. K., Jager-Hyman, S., Cha, J., Steer, R. A., & Beck, A. T.
Affiliations
University of Pennsylvania (US)
Venue
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
Published
2015-12-23
Volume
76
Issue
12
Pages
1683-1686
ISSN
0160-6689 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2230776822
Cited by
162
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2
FWCI
12.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH083745, R37 MH 47383, R01MH067805, T32MH082745, R37MH047383)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health via Writing
Keywords
Beck Depression Inventory, predictive validity, suicide risk screening, suicide attempts, suicide risk assessment, psychiatric outpatients, cut-off values
MeSH terms
Adult, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Mortality, Predictive Value of Tests, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Risk, Suicide, Suicide, Attempted, Reproducibility of Results, Proportional Hazards Models, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review