A Validity and Measurement Equivalence Study of the Ultra-Short Suicidal Ideation Scale With Older Adults

The assessment of suicide risk is a critically important task for practitioners working with older adults. Short-form scales are important tools for use in the assessment of suicide ideation and risk since their brevity makes them ideally suited for use in busy practice settings. This article reports results of a validity study of an ultra-short suicidal ideation scale (USSIS) used with an older adult population. The study tests the hypothesis that scores on the USSIS represent magnitude of suicidal thinking. The USSIS was used to gather data on more than 200 adults, ages 50 to 97 years, recruited from 2 clinical settings that serve older adults. The data are analyzed to provide evidence for concurrent criterion, divergent, factorial, and known-groups discriminant validity. In addition, we conducted analyses to test measurement equivalence across the 2 study sites. Results are consistent with the scores on the USSIS representing magnitude of suicidal ideation, and with measurement equivalence across the study sites.