The Scale for Suicide Ideation - SSI

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 25, 2014

Last Modified: January 16, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a computerized version of the Scale of Suicide Ideation (SSI) as described in:

Beck, AT, Kovacs, M. & Weissman, A. (1979). Assessment of Suicidal Intention: The Scale for Suicide Ideation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47, 43-352.

Duration

5 minutes

Overview

The SSI is a 19-item instrument to assess suicidal intentions. Each question has 3 answer choices.
Clinician fills out the survey based on a semi-structured interview.

• 19 questions with 3 answer choices each (the answer choice suggesting the least suicide intentions
is scored as 0); question 13 has 4 answer choices (but 2 are weighted the same)
• a SSI Score is determined based on the sum of all individual scores

Instructions

Not original, can be easily edited under Editable Parameters

Summary Data

File Name: ssi_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
ssiTotal Sum of all response scores
Range 0-38: the answer choice suggesting the least suicide intentions is scored as 0
=> the higher the score the higher reported suicide intention

Raw Data

File Name: ssi.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
Scale: 0-2 (anchors vary by question)
no reversed scored questions
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
pageInstructions The instructions that appear at the top of each surveyPage