Abstract
The current study aimed to establish a shortened version of the Cultural Assessment of Risk for Suicide (CARS) measure that can be more widely utilized under time constraints in clinical and applied settings. Based on a sample of 485 adults, confirmatory factor analysis, bivariate correlations, and Receiver-Operating Characteristic analyses were employed to determine the most psychometrically valid shortened version. The 14-item, 8-factor CARS screener (CARS-S) evidenced high reliability, high correlation with the original full version of the CARS questionnaire, and high convergent validity with measures of other suicide-related constructs of depression, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and lifetime suicide attempts. The suggested clinical cut-off is 38.5. The shortened CARS-S offers a time-efficient assessment of cultural suicide risk factors.
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Notes on contributors
Joyce Chu
Joyce Chu, Department of Psychology, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
Brandon Hoeflein
Brandon Hoeflein, Department of Psychology, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
Peter Goldblum
Peter Goldblum, Department of Psychology, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
Dorothy Espelage
Dorothy Espelage, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Jordan Davis
Jordan Davis, Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Bruce Bongar
Bruce Bongar, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, California, USA.