The role of objective personality inventories in suicide risk assessment: An evaluation and proposal

Objective personality assessment instruments offer a comparatively underuti lized source of clinical data in attempts to evaluate and predict risk, for suicide. In contrast to focal suicide risk measures, global personality in ventories may be useful in identification of long-standing styles that pred ispose persons to eventual suicidal behavior This article reviews the empir ical literature regarding the efficacy of established personality inventori es in predicting suicidality. The authors offer several recommendations for future research with these measures and conclude that such objective perso nality instruments offer only marginal utility as sources of clinical infor mation in comprehensive suicide risk evaluations. Personality inventories m ay offer greatest utility in long-term assessment of suicide risk.