Screening for adolescent suicidality in primary care: the bullying-insomnia-tobacco-stress test. A population-based pilot study.

AIM

Adolescents at risk for suicide often see their general practitioner solely for somatic or administrative reasons. A simple screening test given during a conversation would be of substantial help to send a signal and tackle the problem. We propose to update a screening test previously validated in France - the TSTS-Cafard - because of significant changes in the lives of adolescents with the growth of the cyber world since 2000.

METHODS

The design and setting was a cross-sectional study involving 912 15-year-old adolescents in 90 French schools. They completed a questionnaire that included the TSTS-Cafard and risk factors extracted from the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey. To improve the test, we selected questions drawn from the recent literature. Answers were analysed according to 'suicidality' = at least one suicide attempt in life or suicidal ideation often over the past 12 months.

RESULTS

Suicidality rates were 9.6% for boys and 23.1% for girls. Although the TSTS-Cafard test was generally effective, one question was no longer discriminating. A new test, entitled 'BITS', included only four questions on bullying, insomnia, tobacco and stress, with three levels of response and scores ranging from 0 to 8. Improvement was achieved without loss of performance. Using a cut-off score of 3, we achieved 78% accuracy (area under the curve), 75% sensitivity and 70% specificity.

CONCLUSION

The BITS test could allow the question of suicide risk to be addressed during a routine check-up in primary care but the results need to be validated with 13 to 18-year olds.