Research Symposium

BIO

I'm Dina Fakhar, a freshman at Florida State University from Tampa, Florida. I am currently pursuing dual degrees in Psychology and Philosophy with hopes of attending law school in the near future. My research interests primarily lie within the field of suicide research, where I aim to refine measurement of suicidal phenomena and ultimately work towards prevention.

Refining Measures of Suicidal Phenomena: Suicide Intent

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate whether the Suicide Intent Measure is a reliable and valid measure of suicide intent. It’s imperative to refine measures of suicide intent to validly assess a construct surrounded by so much definitional chaos, gain maximal information for predicting suicide-relevant outcomes, detect individuals at risk for suicide, and monitor treatment progress. In this study, it was hypothesized that the Suicide Intent Measure is a reliable and valid measure of suicide intent. The Suicide Intent Measure is a long-form measure with 12 items. In order to refine such a measure, an operational definition of suicide intent was first created. Our operational definition of suicide intent is: “The nonfleeting desire to imminently (i.e., within 48 hours) die by suicide, paired with plans or preparations to imminently die by suicide.” After creating an operational definition of suicide intent, existing long-form and short-form measures of suicide intent were gathered to craft a reliable and valid measure of suicide intent. The last process of measurement refinement included addressing reliability, validity, and other factors of the measure.

Keywords: psychology, suicide, measurement, clinical psychology