Validating the Suicide Status Form for the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality in a Psychiatric Adolescent Sample

Date: June 3, 2019

This study tests whether the Suicide Status Form (SSF-IV) — the core assessment tool used in CAMS — works well for adolescents, not just adults. Researchers gave the SSF to 100 psychiatric inpatients ages 12–17, alongside other validated measures of pain, stress, hopelessness, and suicide risk (including an implicit association test). They found the SSF holds up well in this age group: its items correlated meaningfully with related measures, distinguished teens with a suicide attempt history from those without, and produced a two-factor structure (“acute” vs. “chronic” suicidality) broadly similar to what’s been found in adults — though Psychological Pain loaded differently than in adult samples. The authors conclude the SSF doesn’t need modification for adolescents and lay groundwork for future research on CAMS as a treatment for suicidal youth.

Authors: Amy M Brausch, PhD, Stephen S. O’Connor, PhD, Jeffery T. Powers, MS, Michael M. McClay, MS, Jordan A. Gregory, MS, & David A. Jobes, PhD

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About the Author

Amy Brausch Ph.D.

Amy Brausch Ph.D.
Dr. Amy Brausch is an Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at Western Kentucky University where she founded the Risk Behaviors and Suicide Prevention Laboratory in 2011. She completed her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Northern Illinois University in 2008, following her clinical internship at Utah State University Counseling and Psychological Services Center. Dr. Brausch’s research program broadly focuses on youth suicide risk assessment, prevention, and treatment. Specifically, her work has also focused on the overlap between nonsuicidal self-injury and suicide risk, the overlap between body image, disordered eating, and self-harm, and the role of emotion dysregulation in NSSI and suicide risk. Her work has been funded by the Kentucky Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Brausch has collaborated with Dr. Jobes on research related to CAMS-4Teens, including a validation study of the Suicide Status Form for adolescents. As a Senior Consultant with CAMS-care, LLC, Dr. Brausch has provided training in CAMS to mental health providers in the United States and Australia at community mental health centers, university counseling centers, school districts, and local and state mental health suicide prevention organizations.

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