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Denise Hallfors, PhD, Paul H. Brodish, MSPH, Shereen Khatapoush, PhD, Victoria Sanchez, DrPH, Hyunsan Cho, PhD and Allan Steckler, PhD

Denise Hallfors, Paul H. Brodish, Hyunsan Cho, and Allan Steckler are with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Chapel Hill, NC. Allan Steckler is also with the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Shereen Khatapoush is with the Daniel Bryant Youth and Family Treatment Center, Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Santa Barbara, Calif. Victoria Sanchez is with the School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Denise Hallfors, PhD, 1516 E Franklin St, Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (e-mail: hallfors{at}pire.org).

Objectives. We evaluated the feasibility of a population-based approach to preventing adolescent suicide.

Methods. A total of 1323 students in 10 high schools completed the Suicide Risk Screen. Screening results, student follow-up, staff feedback, and school responses were assessed.

Results. Overall, 29% of the participants were rated as at risk of suicide. As a result of this overwhelming percentage, school staffs chose to discontinue the screening after 2 semesters. In further analyses, about half of the students identified were deemed at high risk on the basis of high levels of depression, suicidal ideation, or suicidal behavior. Priority rankings evidenced good construct validity on correlates such as drug use, hopelessness, and perceived family support.

Conclusions. A simpler, more specific screening instrument than the Suicide Risk Screen would identify approximately 11% of urban high school youths for assessment, offering high school officials an important opportunity to identify young people at the greatest levels of need and to target scarce health resources. Our experiences from this study show that lack of feasibility testing greatly contributes to the gap between science and practice.

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