Introduction Suicides in prisons and jails are several times higher than the general population (Thigpen, Beauclair, Hutchinson & Zandi, 2010) for a variety of reasons: incarceration is stressful, mental health issues can be exacerbated in the corrections environment, and overcrowding and understaffing mean that suicidality can be hard to detect. This led to the development…
Month: March 2016
Is the SAD PERSONS Scale dangerous?
The SAD PERSONS scale was first developed in 1983 by Patterson, Dohn, Patterson & Patterson to teach medical students clinical suicide risk assessment skills. In that first publication, students taught the tool – which features 10 risk factors for suicide that are added up, “demonstrated a significantly greater ability to accurately evaluate and make recommendations…