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Best Practice Suicide Screening/Assessment Tools For The Emergency Department, Katheryn M. Spirito

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) often suffer from more than physical ailments when seeking care and treatment. Some of these patients have emotional ailments and suicidal ideation when they come to the local ED. The lack of recognition of at-risk patients by health care providers can lead to poor patient outcomes and death. The focus of this project was to understand which valid and reliable suicide assessment tools described in the literature were considered the best evidence-based instruments to identify ED patients who were at risk for suicide. Peplau's theory of interpersonal relations guided this project. A systematic …