An Overview and Comparison of Two Proposed Suicide-Specific Diagnoses: Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance and Suicide Crisis Syndrome

Current psychological diagnostic classification systems do not fully capture the scope of suicidality, leading to recent advocacy for the inclusion of a suicide-specific diagnosable condition. We contend that a suicide-specific diagnosable condition should parsimoniously reflect acuity and characterize not only if, but also when, a person will engage in suicidal behavior. Two potential solutions to this diagnostic void have been proposed: (1) acute suicidal affective disturbance (ASAD) and (2) suicide crisis syndrome (SCS). This article provides an overview of the phenomenology and existing empirical evidence for ASAD and SCS, as well as a comparison between the two conditions. It also outlines a number of future research directions, including the need to examine both conditions prospectively in heterogeneous samples of people across the lifespan, as well as the necessity of comparing the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of these two syndromes directly within single studies. [ Psychiatr Ann . 2017;47(8):416–420.]