TABLE 1.
Four suicide screening tools approved by The Joint Commissiona
| Screener | Brief description | Setting | Evidence | Sensitivity and specificity and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) | Question 9 screens for presence and duration of suicide ideation. If yes, administer a more detailed suicide screen. | Primary care; adolescents and adults | Spitzer et al., 1999 (15); Simon et al., 2013 (16); Louzon et al., 2016 (17); Rossom et al., 2017 (18) | Depression screen sensitivity, 87.6%; specificity, 66.1%; available free online; single-item scales insufficient for suicide screening |
| Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) | Four questions; developed by the National Institute of Mental Health | Most clinical areas; all ages | Horowitz et al., 2012, 2020 (19, 20) | Sensitivity, 96.9%; specificity 87.6%; ≤2 minutes to complete; available in multiple languages; Brief Suicide Safety Assessment available for positive screens |
| Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire–Revised (SBQ-R) | Four questions, including past, present, and anticipated future suicidal thoughts and behaviors | Adolescents and adults | Brown, 2003 (21); Osman et al., 2001 (22); Kreuze and Lamis, 2018 (23) | No data on sensitivity or specificity; clinical and nonclinical validation studies |
| Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS triage version) | Brief version of C-SSRS; positive responses to first two questions lead to more questions | Most clinical areas; adults and adolescents | Columbia Lighthouse Project, 2018 (24) | Sensitivity, 94%–100%; specificity, 99%–99.4%; specificity only 18% when used in an emergency department; available free online; increasingly used in medical centers and emergency departments |