Table 2.
Chance-corrected agreement between 17 candidate screening items and the SIQ for the assessment of risk for suicide in entire cohort of patients with medical/surgical and psychiatric complaints (N=524)
| Item | Question | % Yes |
LR | Kappa (95% CI) |
c- statistic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Has something very stressful happened to you in the past few weeks? |
48.1 | 50.3 | 0.24 (0.17–0.31) | 0.69 |
| 2 | In the past few weeks, have you felt so nervous or worried in a way that felt unbearable, like you couldn’t stand it anymore? |
29.8 | 106.4 | 0.45 (0.36–0.53) | 0.77 |
| 3 | In the past few weeks, have you been bullied or picked on so much that you felt like you couldn’t stand it anymore? |
11.5 | 10.2 | 0.14 (0.04–0.24) | 0.56 |
| 4 | Do you or anyone in your life think you have a problem with drugs or alcohol? |
10.3 | 28.1 | 0.24 (0.14–0.35) | 0.60 |
| 5 | Have you ever felt hopeless, like things would never get better? |
51.7 | 89.5 | 0.29 (0.23–0.36) | 0.75 |
| 6 | Do you feel like you might as well give up because you can’t make things better for yourself? |
24.0 | 182.8 | 0.62 (0.54–0.70) | 0.85 |
| 7 | In the past few weeks, have you been sad or depressed most of the time? |
40.0 | 151.3 | 0.45 (0.38–0.53) | 0.82 |
| 8 |
In the past few weeks, have you felt so sad or depressed in a way that felt unbearable, like you couldn’t stand it anymore? |
24.3 | 170.1 | 0.60 (0.52–0.68) | 0.83 |
| 9 |
In the past few weeks, have you felt that you or your family would be better off if you were dead? |
16.4 | 239.9 | 0.75 (0.67–0.82) | 0.86 |
| 10 |
In the past few weeks, have you though that your life was so bad that you didn’t want to live anymore? |
18.6 | 224.2 | 0.72 (0.64–0.80) | 0.86 |
| 11 |
In the past few weeks, have you wished you were dead? |
19.7 | 273.4 | 0.78 (0.72–0.85) | 0.90 |
| 12 | Are you here because you tried to hurt yourself? | 13.9 | 102.5 | 0.50 (0.39–0.59) | 0.72 |
| 13 | Have you ever tried to hurt yourself in the past? | 24.5 | 97.5 | 0.46 (0.36–0.55) | 0.75 |
| 14 |
Have you ever seriously considered killing yourself? |
19.3 | 181.0 | 0.65 (0.56–0.73) | 0.83 |
| 15 |
In the past week, have you been having thoughts about killing yourself? |
15.8 | 207.4 | 0.70 (0.62–0.78) | 0.83 |
| 16 | Have you ever tried to kill yourself? | 13.9 | 97.0 | 0.48 (0.38–0.58) | 0.72 |
| 17* | Do you have close friends or family that you can go to when you have a serious problem? |
93.1 | 19.6 | −0.06 (−0.09–0.02) | 0.57 |
Abbreviations: LR, likelihood ratio;
*
A negative kappa, while uncommon, suggests that this item agrees with the SIQ less than would be expected by chance. Bolded items are “trigger” items for a psychiatric consultation.