Psychometric Properties of the Bangla Brief Suicide Cognitions Scale among University Level Students

Abstract

Objectives. Assessment of suicide cognition would help to measure the enduring suicide risk and to predict the risk of a suicide attempt. However, no previous attempt was identified to validate the suicide cognition scale in Bangla. We aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the Brief Suicide Cognitions Scale (BSCS) in Bangla. Methods. We conducted this validation study among 529 medical and university students. We collected the responses by Google Forms with the translated version of BSCS from 20 August to 20 October 2022. We assessed internal consistency form of reliability, face validity, content validity, construct validity, concurrent validity, and discriminant validity. Results. The mean age of the respondents was 23.32±1.73 years; 52.5% were males, 92% were single, 75% were undergraduate students, 40.24% were studying in medical schools, 18.53% had a chronic illness, 9.45% had a mental illness, 4.16% had a family history of suicide, and 11.15% had previous nonfatal attempts. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.84, and factor analysis revealed unidimensional construct with six items with a good model fit. The BSCS showed acceptable convergent and discriminant validity. Conclusion. This study assessed the psychometric properties of Bangla BSCS among students which found acceptable reliability and validity. Further studies could test the validation especially among clinical samples to assess the predictive validity of the instrument.