The Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation® (BSS™) is a valuable tool for clinicians to examine suicidal intent in patients. Developed for use with patients of 17 years and over, the BSS™ provides a good starting point for a clinician's more detailed examination of a patient's suicidal intent.
The BSS™ is also useful for monitoring suicide ideation of patients who are known to be at risk for suicide
Guidance on using BSS in your Telepractice
Digital scoring and reporting option available on Q-global®
Benefits
The manual provides data on both in-patients and outpatients. The BSS™ items correlate highly with items that relate to suicide on the other Beck Scales:
- Internal Screening Component saves time. The Scale is made up of 21 items and can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. Two of the questions on the Scale are designed to function as an internal screening component. This component saves time and reduces the intrusiveness of the questionnaire for patients who are non-suicidal.
- Useful in Therapy and Training. The BSS™ has been used extensively at the Centre for Cognitive Therapy for the past 15 years. It can be effective as a tool for clinicians to examine suicidal intent and as a teaching guide.
Reliability Information:
Average reliability coefficient: .90 (Inpatient), .87 (Outpatient)
Test-retest reliability: .54
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Q-global® - Our web-based system for scoring and reporting paper administrations

Q-global® is our secure and affordable web-based platform for test administration, scoring and reporting. It houses the industry's gold standard in assessment tools and is accessible from any computer connected to the Internet. Q-global helps you quickly and efficiently organise examinee information, generate scores, and produce accurate comprehensive reports.
Two options for scoring and reporting are now available on Q-global:
- The first option is to pay per-report. Customers who administer this assessment only a few times each year, or those who want the flexibility to pay only as the assessment is used, may prefer this option.
- The second option is to select an "unlimited use" subscription, where one user of this assessment gets unlimited scoring and reporting for a year. This may be a better option for customers who administer this measure several times each year - and don't want to worry about keeping track of their report expenses.
Please note there is no onscreen administration included in the scoring subscription. Customers selecting this option must manually enter data in order for scores and reports to be generated.
Learn more about -Q-global