Measuring implicit associations about suicide

自杀是世界范围内的主要死亡原因之一，世界卫生组织和美国卫生与公众服务部强调需要改进识别自杀风险个体的方法。目前评估自杀风险的方法几乎完全依赖于自杀想法和意图的自我报告，这可能会提供有偏见或有限的信息，因为许多自杀者可能会否认自我伤害的想法，以避免住院治疗或方便出院。拟议研究的长期目标是开发更客观和准确的方法来识别那些有自杀风险的人。本申请中提出的研究的主要目标是使用社会和认知科学的方法来开发和评估用于评估自杀风险的临床工具。更具体地说，拟议的研究评估的有用性内隐联想测试（IAT），计算机化的反应时间任务，评估个人的自动协会有关不同的概念，检查内隐协会的个人之间的自杀在一个大都市医院的急诊科。本研究的具体目的是：（1）通过使用自杀IAT评估精神科急诊室环境中自杀的内隐关联来评估自杀IAT的有效性，其中（a）最近有自杀企图的个体（N = 30），（B）报告有自杀想法但没有自杀企图的个体（N = 30），（c）否认最近自杀企图或当前自杀想法的急诊科就诊者（N = 30）;（2）评估住院期间内隐自杀相关性的变化;（3）在6个月的随访期内，评估在医院测量的内隐联想预测自杀想法和企图的能力。这项研究的结果对自杀评估相关的研究和临床工作具有重要意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Suicide is among the leading causes of death worldwide and the World Health Organization and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have highlighted the need for improved methods of identifying individuals at risk for suicide. Current methods for evaluating suicide risk rely almost exclusively on self report of suicidal thoughts and intent, which can provide biased or limited information as many suicidal individuals may deny self-injurious thoughts in order to avoid hospitalization or to facilitate discharge from hospital care. The long-term objective of the proposed line of research is the development of more objective and accurate methods of identifying those at risk for suicide. The primary goal of the research proposed in this application is to use methods from the social and cognitive sciences to develop and evaluate a clinical tool for assessing suicide risk. More specifically, the proposed research evaluates the usefulness of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a computerized reaction-time task that evaluates individuals' automatic associations about different concepts, for examining implicit associations about suicide among individuals presenting to an emergency department at a major metropolitan hospital. The specific aims of this research are to (1) evaluate the validity of the suicide IAT by using it to assess implicit associations about suicide in a psychiatric emergency department setting among (a) individuals who have made a recent suicide attempt (N = 30), (b) individuals who report suicidal thoughts who have not made a suicide attempt (N = 30), and (c) individuals presenting to the emergency department who deny a recent suicide attempt or current suicidal thoughts (N = 30); (2) evaluate changes in implicit associations about suicide over the course of hospitalization; and (3) evaluate the ability of the implicit association measured in the hospital to predict suicidal thoughts and attempts over a six-month follow-up period. The results of this research have significant implications for research and clinical efforts related to suicide assessment.