Suicide risk assessment in a college student population

A group of 211 students at a midwestern university completed the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire (M. M. Linehan & S. L. Nielsen, 1981), Adult Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (W. M. Reynolds, 1991a), Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale (I. Orbach et al., 1991), Beck Helplessness Scale (A. T. Beck, A. Weissman, D. Lester, & L. Trexler, 1974), and the Reasons for Living Inventory (M. M. Linehan, L. J. Goodstein, S. L. Nielsen, & J. A. Chiles, 1983) to determine if this group of commonly used self-report measures can distinguish between individuals with high and low levels of suicidal ideation and history of self-harmful behaviors. Exploratory principal-axis factor analysis resulted in an interpretable 2-factor solution accounting for 36.2% of the variance in suicidality. Support for convergent validity of the chosen measures was also found. It appears that rapid, accurate assessment of university student suicide risk is possible. Implications for reduction of suicide risk in this segment of the population are discussed.