Assignment: Clinical Aspect

Assignment: Clinical Aspect

Assignment: Clinical Aspect

Other limitations of the study included the reliance on self-report and the brief nature of the assessment, as well as the usage of single items on dichotomous scales, which placed constraints on the depth of the information obtained. Future research could employ qualitative interviews to explore the relationships and processes underpinning risk and protective factors, features of the attempt, and other factors that might be relevant for understanding contributory factors towards mental illness in suicide attempters.The SRAFwas developed by the local hospital for collection of clinically relevant variables, for assessment and diagnosis, and for devising

an appropriate management plan, and psychometric proper- ties were not available, which is another limitation. Future research could employ more comprehensive interviews and use standardized measures, e.g., Beck Suicide Ideation Scale for analysis of convergent validity and conduct the research with healthy controls for examination of discriminant validity [55]. Finally this study was based on an archival retrospective review of records of patients who were admitted for a suicide attempt from January 2004 to December 2006. Although this data set was the most comprehensive data set available from the hospital, as such assessment data were not collected prior to and following the stipulated period, the archival data were dated, and future research could endeavour to collect recent data. In addition, retrospective studies might be affected by recall bias that could significantly affect the reported findings. The strength of the study could be attributed to its large sample size, but in view of the above constraints, results need to be interpreted with caution.