Abstract
ObjectiveThis study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the suicide stroop task in a Chinese college population.MethodsCollege students (n = 121) who were in the 1st–4th grade, fluent in Chinese, and without color blindness were recruited from a university in Guangzhou, China from September to December 2019. Participants were administered the suicide stroop task at baseline and 1-month follow-up.ResultsThe suicide stroop task showed excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.940 to 0.953). However, the suicide stroop task did not reveal suicide-related attentional biases among current suicide ideators and was not significantly associated with the severity of suicidal ideation, depression, hopelessness, nor anhedonia (all p values > 0.05), indicating a lack of concurrent validity for the task. Additionally, the two-time data of interference scores could not generate intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) due to a negative average covariance among data, which indicated poor test–retest consistency for the task.ConclusionThe results of this study did not support the use of the suicide stroop task on the identification of suicidal risk among Chinese college students. It is crucial to assess the psychometric properties of behavioral measures rigorously as self-report measures before large applications in clinical and community settings.
Highlights
Suicide is a major public health issue in young people, with suicide being the second leading cause of death in people between the ages of 15 and 29 years worldwide (Turecki and Brent, 2016)
This study aimed to provide more evidence whether the suicide stroop task could be used in a community-based sample in which the majority would not report suicidal ideation and have never made a serious suicidal attempt before
We hypothesized that (1) those who reported current suicidal ideation would have slower reaction times to suicide-related words than those without current suicidal ideation and (2) the performance of the suicide stroop task would be significantly associated with suicidal ideation severity, depression, hopelessness, and anhedonia
Summary
Suicide is a major public health issue in young people, with suicide being the second leading cause of death in people between the ages of 15 and 29 years worldwide (Turecki and Brent, 2016). Suicide has received increasing attention among subgroups of these young people including college students. A meta-analysis showed that pooled prevalence estimates of lifetime suicidal ideation, plans, and attempt were 22.3, 6.1, and 3.2% among college students, and higher estimates were found in samples from Asia (Mortier et al, 2018). It is important to effectively identify people at risk for suicide behaviors to prevent fatal attempt, but the prediction of suicide continues to be a critical challenge (Franklin et al, 2017). The screening of suicide risk commonly relies on self-report. Self-report assessments are limited by the individuals’ willingness (e.g., to avoid hospitalization) and ability
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