Use of the Modified Emotional Stroop Task to Detect Suicidality in College Population

This cross-sectional study investigated the usefulness of the emotional Stroop task (EST) as a behavioral marker for suicidal behaviors in a college population. Eight hundred twenty college students were asked to perform on the EST and to respond to suicide-related self-report measures. The results indicated that past suicide attempters were slower in responding to the word suicide as compared to nonattempters, and female past attempters showed more delayed response when their most recent attempt was made in the past 12months. We did not find evidence that the EST could outperform the traditional self-report measures.