Assessing the validity of the Plutchik suicide risk scale

One of the newer scales of suicide risk devised by Plutchik and colleagues was tested to see if it could discriminate between levels of suicide ideation and suicide attempts. A sample of 80 subjects were placed into various categories of suicide risk on the basis of a psychiatric examination. Results showed that the full scale did not adequately discriminate among groups. An explanation of the results has been proposed and a design to test this suggestion described.