Development of a Suicidal Intent Questionnaire

Inspite of the fact that the study of suicidal behaviour has been the subject of an ever increasing body of li terature, re catch in the field of communication of suicidal intent has somehow not received due attention. Quite often pntient 's suicidal ideas may remain unnoticed during clinical interview in an overcrowded psychiatric outpatient and at times this inadvertent neglect might result in loss of a precious life. Perhaps the problem could be effectively handled if we had some reliable technique to detect the potentially suicidal individual. Besides, there a re different types of suicidal behaviour involving varying degrees of ri.sk; for instance, in a case of hysteric the gravity of risk may be much less as compaied to a truly depiessed. According to Stengel (1964), talking about suicide intent serves as a warning to other people and as such irrespective of the level of conscious awaieness every suicidal at tempt has a powerful "appeal for h e l p " . Similarly, Farberow and Schneidman (1965) and Schneidman (1967) regarded both verbal and nonverbal expression of suicidal ideas as a call for help. Abhough several attempts have been made to investigate suicidal intent through projective tests especially Rorschach InkBlot Test (Appclbaum and Colso i , 1968; Appelbanm and Holzman, 1962; Daston & Sakheim, 1960; Mar t in , 1951; Piotrowski, 1968; Stpolsky, 1963; Wciner, 1961), considerable amount of disagreement still exists with regard to their applicabil i ty in a clinical setting. Administration as well as interpretation of these psychological tests no! only require cx:civive experience but a re also considerably time consuming. Hence , development of a quest ionnaire to elicit sviicidal behaviour has been a long felt need. I t is hoped that a tool which may discriminate suicidal and non-suicidal pa t ients and easy to administer should go a long way in providing effective psychiatric treatment and to some extent, lessening the incidence of suicidal morbidity.