NCJ Number
215947
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2006 Pages: 204-217
Date Published
April 2006
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This study evaluated the reliability and validity of a new instrument, the Suicide Screening Inventory (SSI), for assessing the risk of suicide in adjudicated delinquents.
Abstract
Overall, the results indicate that the SSI is a moderately good assessment instrument for evaluating the risk of suicide in adjudicated delinquents. Specifically, the results indicated moderate internal consistency for the SSI, which should be sufficient for a short screening tool like the SSI. The SSI was also found to have high content validity, meaning that experts at assessing suicide likelihood considered the questions on the SSI useful and important. Other findings indicated that the SSI had good convergent validity with the RADS assessment of depressive symptoms and that the SSI had good consequential validity, based on the qualitative data on four incarcerated youths who attempted suicide. Participants were 382 male offenders and 60 female offenders who had been consecutively admitted to 2 secure correctional facilities in Wisconsin. Participants completed the SSI and the RADS, a self-report measure designed to determine the severity of depressive symptoms in adolescents. The reliability of the SSI was assessed using split-half reliability coefficients in an odd-even item format. Cronbach’s alpha was used as the reliability estimate and t tests were used to assess the content validity. Limitations of the study are discussed which include its use of a nonrandom sample of youths at two facilities, calling into question the generalizability of the findings. Future research should evaluate the reliability and validity of the SSI for assessing suicide risk outside of corrections populations. Tables, notes, references