The high frequency of suicide risk in adolescents necessitates the development and validation of specific tools for systematic screening. To date, there are translated, but not validated suicide risk screening tools in Spanish.

To validate the Spanish version of the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) for suicide risk screening in pediatric patients in Argentina.

Using a cross-sectional multicenter design, a convenience sample of pediatric patients aged 10 to 18 years old were recruited from outpatient/inpatient medical settings and private psychiatric clinics. The Spanish version of the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ) assessment tool was used as a standard criterion to validate the ASQ.

A total of 301/380 pediatric patients were screened for suicide risk. Twentyeight percent of the entire sample (83/301) of youth screened positive on the ASQ, and 21% (62/301) screened positive on the SIQ/SIQ-JR and were considered “at risk” for suicide. Compared with the SIQ, the Spanish ASQ yielded a sensitivity of 96.8% (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 88.8–99.6%), specificity of 90.4% (95% CI: 85.9–93.8%), positive predictive value of 72.3% (95 CI: 61.4–81.6%), and negative predictive value of 99.1% (95% CI: 96.7–99.9%). The positive Likelihood Ratio (LR) was 10.1 (95% CI: 6.1–14.0), and the negative LR was 0.03 (95% CI: −0.01–0.09). Kappa was 0.77 (95% CI: 0.69–0.86), and the Area Under the Curve was 0.94 (95% CI: 0.91–0.97).

The Spanish language ASQ demonstrated strong psychometric properties, providing initial evidence that it is a valid tool for identifying Spanish-speaking youth at risk for suicide.