Psychometric properties and item evaluation of the life attitudes schedule: Short form: A novel measure of suicide proneness.

Abstract

Suicide is a leading. cause of death for emerging adults, thus there is critical need for measurement tools to assess suicide risk. The Life Attitudes Schedule (LAS) and its short-form (LAS:SF) were designed to assess suicide proneness, a construct, representing one's propensity to engage in life diminishing/life-shortening behaviors, theoretically occurring before overt suicidal ideation. Despite the utility of assessing suicide proneness, the LAS:SF is used with relative infrequency and shows worsening psychometric properties across time. Additionally, suicide proneness has not been integrated into recent suicidal behavior theories nor the ideation-to-action framework. Consequently, this study evaluated the psychometric properties and factor structure of the LAS:SF in four college student samples. Several items performed poorly across samples, are culturally and theoretically outdated, and/or assess more than one thought, feeling, or action. We highlight the need to update the measure and incorporate this construct into current theories of suicidality and emerging prevention efforts.