72051

SUHAIL IQBAL
BECK SCALE FOR SUICIDA
IDEATION(BSS)
• Developed in 1988
• 21 items self report
• Parallels SSI
Suicidal ideation
• Presence of
• Thoughts
• Plans
• Wishes
• Which leads to committing suicide
development
• SSI was developed on
• Hospitalized patients of depression
• Initially inpatients only
• Outpatients
Self Report Version BSS
Modes of administration
• Paper and pencil format
• Computer format
Description and content
• all items
administration
• Testing condition
• Admiration time
• Self admiration
• Oral administration
• Response sets
scoring
• Score range from 0 to 38.
• Mild = 7 to 15
• Moderate = 16 to 25
• Severe = 26 to 38
scoring
1-Detection.
• First 5 items help in screening
• Item 4 & 5

2-severity
suicide ideators (who rates all items)
severity (by summing all ratings)
interpretation
• Simple by computing score
• To check concealment
• use of BHS&BDI
Psychometric characteristics
1- Reliability
• test retest = moderate(.5)
• Internal consistency = inpatients(.9),outpatients(.87)

2- validity
• content validity
• Concurrent validity = (.9) with SSI
• Predictive validity
Appropriate use
• SSI valid for adults and adolescents patients
• Reliability and validity of BSS not tested for adolescents
• Best use of BSS is with adults psychiatric patients
limitations
1- scores (indicators not predictors)
2-not sole source of information
3-no mechanism to detect dissimulation
4-developed with adult psychiatric population, should be used
cautiously otherwise
5-no replacement for expert clinical evaluation