Lifenet: A knowledge-based decision support tool for the risk assessment of adolescent suicide

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of Lifenet, a knowledge-based decision support system (KBDSS) for the risk assessment of adolescent suicide. Lifenet combines aspects of expert system and decision support technology, and applies them to the social service domain. Assessment is a core task in the social service industry, and its complex nature, combined with the growing use of paraprofessionals as caseworkers, provides several likely domain areas for KBDSS technology. Lifenet's main functions are to provide paraprofessional caseworkers support in reaching unbiased and consistent risk assessments, and to recommend a course of action on the part of the caseworker. The KBDSS was tested by social service professionals using actual cases, and in a controlled experiment with paraprofessionals. Paraprofessionals using Lifenet made more accurate assessments in less time than did paraprofessionals using manual assessment tools. This paper discusses the background, design, implementation, and validation of Lifenet, and presents ideas for future work.