Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Apr:26:46-51.
doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2017.01.017. Epub 2017 Jan 20.

The psychometric characteristics of the 4-item Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) as a screening tool in a non-clinical sample of Nigerian university students

Olutayo Aloba  1 , Olubunmi Ojeleye  2 , Tolulope Aloba  3
Affiliations

The psychometric characteristics of the 4-item Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) as a screening tool in a non-clinical sample of Nigerian university students

Olutayo Aloba et al. Asian J Psychiatr. 2017 Apr.

Abstract

Background: Suicide is a major contribution to mortality among university students in developed countries. There is no reliable and validated self-report suicide assessment scale with adequate sensitivity and specificity for the identification of Nigerian university students who are at risk of future suicidal behaviors.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of the 4 item Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) as a screening tool for suicide risk assessment among university undergraduate students in South-western Nigeria.

Method: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study involving 536 undergraduate Nigerian students. The students completed the SBQ-R, in addition to a sociodemographic and academic related questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the 12 item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Suicidal risk categories among the students were determined by interviewing them with the items of the suicidality module section of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI).

Results: Cronbach's alpha for the SBQ-R items was 0.80. Construct validity was supported through significant positive correlations with the HADS-Anxiety and Depression subscales, and the GHQ-12. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve evaluation suggests that the best cut-off total score with the optimal sensitivity (0.882), specificity (0.875) and highest accuracy (0.879) was 8 in terms of identifying the students at high risk of suicide (Area Under the Curve=0.928; 95% Confidence Interval=0.890-0.966; Standard Error=0.019).

Conclusions: The use of the SBQ-R may be an important and vital step in the prevention of suicidal attempts among Nigerian university students.

Keywords: Nigerian university students; Reliability; Sensitivity; Specificity; Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised; Validity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources