Suicide Prevention Training Initiative: The ASQ Tool
The IHS Division of Behavioral Health and the National Institutes of Mental Health/National Institutes of Health (NIH) have partnered to promote and implement universal suicide screening in IHS emergency departments using the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) tool.
The ASQ screen is a set of four questions that takes approximately 20 seconds to administer.
A National Institute of Mental Health study found that a "yes" response to one or more of the four questions identified 97 percent of youth (ages 10 to 21 years) at risk for suicide. By initiating early identification and assessment of youth and adults at risk for suicide, the ASQ screen can play a key role in suicide prevention.
The National Institutes of Mental Health provides a free ASQ Toolkit as a resource for medical settings (emergency department, inpatient medical/surgical units, outpatient clinics/primary care) that can help nurses or physicians successfully identify youth at risk for suicide.
