New Suicide Risk Tests: Coming Soon to a Psychiatrist Near You?

(Aug. 5) -- Two new approaches to evaluating suicide risk seem to outdo existing approaches, including a psychiatrist's own opinion of whether or not a patient is in danger.

Psychologists at Harvard have published two separate studies on the tests and want to see both incorporated into clinical practice to help doctors accurately anticipate suicidal behavior.

So what are the new tools, and how do they improve upon what's already done? Surge Desk breaks it down.

How do doctors anticipate suicide risk?

Unfortunately, doctors often rely on self-reporting from patients. It's a strategy that's marred by the obvious -- suicidal patients often keep mum about their intentions.

And despite myriad advances in behavioral science, researchers have yet to design an objective tool to accurately predict whether a patient is considering suicide. That's where these new tools might be extremely useful.

"Experts have long sought a clear behavioral marker of suicide risk," Dr. Matthew K. Nock, author of the two studies, told the Harvard Gazette. "The current approach, based on self-reporting, leads to predictions that are scarcely better than chance."

What would the new tests offer?

The first is a simple computer evaluation, asking patients to identify the color of words on a screen. Participants were more likely to attempt suicide if they identified "suicide-related" words more rapidly than neutral ones.

The second test relies on word pairings on a computer screen. Researchers measured how quickly a patient reacted to pairings on words related to themselves, life, and death or suicide.

A quicker response to a pairing reveals an unconscious association. Those with rapid responses to pairings that matched "self" and "death" were six times more likely to attempt suicide within six months.

"These findings suggest that a person's implicit cognition may guide which behavior he or she chooses to cope with extreme distress," Nock said. "More specifically, an implicit association with death/suicide may represent one of the final steps in the pathway to suicide."

When will experts be able to accurately predict suicide risk?

Nock and Co. evaluated their tests on a few hundred patients, so it will likely be some time before they make their way to the doctor's office.

And while these tests offer behavioral indicators, research is also ongoing into biological markers to assess suicide risk. Those markers could be assessed using tools like brain scans and genetic tests, making them remarkably objective and -- hopefully -- more reliable.

A 2009 study, for example, found that the brain's outer layer -- called the cortex -- was thinner among individuals prone to depression.

And while it's long been established that illnesses like alcoholism and schizophrenia, which can increase one's risk of suicide, run in families, experts are still trying to fully unravel the genetic underpinnings of depression and suicide risk.