Validity of the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised in patients with short-term suicide risk

Abstract Background and objectives Suicide is known as a public health problem; however, there are few validated scales with no predictive validity. The aim of this study was to assess the validity of the Spanish version of The Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised in patients with suicidality. Methods We applied the Spanish version of The Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised and 2 other scales to patients with suicide risk. Thirty days later we reassessed to determine the predictive validity for suicide attempt or suicide. Results 484 patients with suicidality were screened of which 417 were eligible and 411 were evaluable. Factor analysis found a domain with an eigenvalue of 2.0 explaining 50.1% of the variance. With a cutoff point ≥11 the NPV was 98.3% (IC95%, 95.2–99.6) and the PPV was 8.7% (IC95%, 4.7–14.4). Conclusion The Spanish version of The Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised, similar to the English version, has moderate internal consistency, adequate concurrent validity and predictive validity.