Detecting Risk of Suicide in a Pediatric Emergency Department

Objective:

The ultimate goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of non-mental health clinicians working in an Emergency Departments (ED) to recognize and initiate further evaluation of children and adolescents at risk for suicide.

Aim 1: To re-validate the Risk of Suicide Questionnaire (RSQ), a screening tool that assists non-psychiatric clinicians in rapidly detecting suicide risk in pediatric patients, in a pediatric ED mental health population in the Children s National Medical Center (CNMC) ED.

Aim 2: To determine the utility of a suicide screening tool, a revised version of the Risk of Suicide Questionnaire, to detect suicide risk in pediatric patients presenting to the CNMC ED for non-mental health reasons.

Study population:

The study population includes all patients admitted to the CNMC Emergency Department, ages 10 to 21, during the data collection weeks of the study period. Both patients admitted for mental health and non-mental health reasons will be included in the study.

Design:

This will be a prospective instrument development /validation study. During a designated study week, all mental health patients and a random subset of non-mental health patients admitted to the CNMC ED will be approached after their triage assessment. Following informed consent and assent, a 17-item suicide assessment tool created for this research project (RSQ-Revised), as well as a brief background questionnaire will be administered. These questions will be validated against a gold standard suicide assessment questionnaire, which will be administered to the subjects directly after the RSQ-Revised. The study aims to develop a brief suicide screening tool to be used at triage for all patients entering the ED.

Measures

Measures include the proposed 17-item screening questionnaire and a gold standard assessment of suicidal ideation in adolescents, the Suicide Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ).