Rating Scale Successfully Predicts Suicide Attempts and Guides Intervention

Kelly Posner is trying to save lives. As director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment, she led a team from Columbia's Department of Psychiatry in developing a tool that successfully predicts suicidal intent. Kelly Posner and Jeffrey Lieberman talk about the development of the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale. In a study published in the November 8 AJP in Advance , the early edition of The American Journal of Psychiatry , University researchers found that the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) is not only pivotal to assessing suicidal behavior, but it can help predict an attempt. "The results are likely to have tremendous impact both nationally and internationally," said Posner, who is also an associate clinical professor of medical psychology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. "Now clinicians have a real scientific footing on which to base treatment interventions. What our study shows is that using the C-SSRS helps to identify patients that would have fallen through the cracks." The assessment tool, which is available in 103 languages, consists of a series of questions that determine a person's suicidal thoughts and behavior.