Understanding Patterns of Adolescent Suicide Ideation: Implications for Risk Assessment

Abstract Understanding the nature of adolescent suicide ideation is of critical importance to improving suicide risk assessment, but research in this area has been limited. This chapter reviews theories and research suggesting that the form and pattern that adolescent suicide ideation takes can be informative about the risk of engaging in future suicidal behavior. These include studies examining suicide-related attention biases, duration of suicide ideation, and suicide-related imagery, longitudinal studies examining suicide ideation trajectories, and ecological momentary assessment research examining moment-to-moment variability in suicide ideation. We propose theoretically and empirically informed subtypes of suicide ideation that can be assessed during a clinical interview and that might provide additional information to clinicians about an adolescent’s risk of engaging in future suicidal behavior. Developing ways of classifying the form and pattern of suicide ideation may provide information to clinicians about an adolescent’s risk of making a suicide attempt and guide clinical care of adolescents.