Structured Professional Judgment to Assist the Evaluation and Safety Planning of Suicide Risk: The Risk of Suicide Protocol (RoSP)

The Cardiff Self-Injury Inventory (English version): Convergent validity and psychometric properties

Background and Aims

The Cardiff Self-Injury Inventory (CSII) is a short (1 min), relatively nonintrusive, measure of previous self-injury behaviors written in English. It measures self-injury with suicidal intent and without such intent, covers actions versus thoughts, and has two time periods (lifetime vs recent [defined as the last 3 months]). The study aimed to examine its psychometric properties and its relationship to more well-established measures.

Methods

A UK community sample of 184 participants completed the CSII and two other measures of self-harming (Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory [DSHI] and Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised [SBQ-R]) in March 2020-May 2020. Fifty participants also repeated these measurements 1-2 weeks later.

Results

The CSII showed strong psychometric properties with internal reliability of 0.87 and a test-retest of 0.82. The subscales also showed strong psychometric properties. The CSII showed strong concurrent validity to the other measures of self-injury (SBQ-R, r = 0.70; DSHI, r = 0.81). A factor analysis supported the idea that there are two distinct components to the overall CSII score arising due to the distinction between suicidal and nonsuicidal behaviors.

Conclusion

The CSII has good psychometric properties in this population and can be used as a fast, nonintrusive, measure of different self-injurious behaviors for clinical or research purposes.

Long-Term Use and Application of Systematic Tailored Assessment for Responding to Suicidality (STARS) Protocol Following Original Training

BACKGROUND

Understanding the use of Systematic Tailored Assessment for Responding to Suicidality protocol (STARS-p) in practice by trained mental health practitioners over the longer- term is critical to informing further developments. The study aim was to examine practitioners' experiences of STARS-p and factors associated with its use in practice over a 12-24-month period after training.

METHOD

Practitioners who undertook the STARS-p training completed an online survey 12-24 months post training. The survey focused on the frequency of use of STARS-p (in full and each section) as well as perceptions about STARS-p applied in practice. Analyses included correlations, logistic regression and content analysis.

RESULTS

67 participants (81% female, Mage = 43.2, SD = 10.3) were included in the analyses. A total of 80.6% of participants had used the entire STARS-p at some time-point in their practice and less than half (44.7%) frequently used the entire STARS-p (all components in one administration). Parts A, B and C were used frequently in suicide risk assessment (SRA) by 84%, 71% and 82% of participants, respectively. Use of the entire protocol and different sections was most related to male gender, perceived ease of administration and confidence in the use of the protocol. Qualitative results revealed three main themes.

CONCLUSIONS

STARS-p as a whole or its parts, is frequently used. Advantages of, and barriers to, using STARS-p in practice can inform further developments of STARS-p and STARS training.