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ASAD Criteria Predicted Past Suicide Attempts

J Affect Disord; ePub 2017 Jan 3; Rogers, et al

Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance (ASAD) criteria predicted past suicide attempts above depression and other disorders, according to a recent study. Researchers had 2 samples of psychiatric outpatients (n=343, aged 18–71 years, 60.6% female, 74.9% white) and inpatients (n=7,698, aged 15–99 years, 57.2% female, 87.8% white) complete measures of their ASAD symptoms and psychological functioning. They found:

  • Across both samples, results of a confirmatory factor analysis supported the unidimensional nature of the ASAD construct.
  • Additionally, results provided evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of ASAD, demonstrating its relation to, yet distinction from, other psychiatric disorders and correlates of suicide in expected ways.
  • Importantly, ASAD symptoms differentiated multiple attempters, single attempters, and non-attempters, as well as attempters, ideators, and non-suicidal patients, and was an indicator of past suicide attempts above and beyond symptoms of depression and other psychiatric disorders.

Citation:

Rogers ML, Chiurliza B, Hagan CR, et al. Acute suicidal affective disturbance: Factorial structure and initial validation across psychiatric outpatient and inpatient samples. [Published online ahead of print January 3, 2017]. J Affect Disord. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2016.12.057.