Development and validation of the Behavioral Health Acuity Risk model: a predictive model for suicide prevention through clinical interventions

Common suicidal ideation screening tools used in healthcare settings rely on the willingness of the patient to express having suicidal thoughts. We present an automatic and data-driven risk model that examines information available in the medical record captured during the normal course of care. This model uses random forests to assess the likelihood of suicidal behavior in patients aged seven or older presenting at any healthcare setting. The Behavioral Health Acuity Risk (BHAR) model achieves an area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) of 0.84 and may be used on its own or as a component of a comprehensive suicidal behavior risk assessment. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study did not receive any funding. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The Institutional Review Board of Novant Health, Inc gave ethical approval for this work. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study may be made available upon reasonable request to the authors after review by the Novant Health Information Governance Steering Committee.