Neglect of Religious Issues in Scale-Based Assessment of Suicidal Patients

The psychiatric literature suggests that religion and spiritual issues are significant and meaningful forces in the lives of patients with mental disorders, particularly when they confront suicide. Yet scales assessing suicidal risk almost entirely fail to consider religion and spirituality. The authors review a series of suicide rating scales to demonstrate this omission and suggest possible reasons for it. A definitive answer awaits research that addresses the question of why patients' religious and spiritual dimensions are neglected by psychiatric clinicians.