only prevention programs that have shown an ability to decrease the rate of suicide death,64 such programs are not used in most clinical settings. What has been lacking is an empirically derived screening instrument that can be feasibly used in clinical settings to assess key risk factors and determine a person’s level of risk for suicide attempt. Although it will be important to test the prospective predictive ability of these indices in actual clinical settings, the risk indices developed in this study represent an important initial step toward bridging the gap between the science and practice of suicide risk assessment.
