Analysis of speech features as potential indicators for depression and high risk suicide and possible predictors for the Hamilton Depression Rating (HAMD) and Beck Depression Inventory scale (BDI-II)

This research focuses on the psychological disorders, particularly on two distinct groups of suicidal predisposition and major depression. The investigations of speech within the area of depressive disorders are more widely studied compared to suicidality. Marilyn and Stephen Silverman [62] have proposed and explored the effect of suicidality in speech. The knowledge on how acoustic parameters of speech are modulated when a patient begins to experience an imminent risk of suicidal as opposed to only experiencing a major depression have been accumulated for over 20 years and still it continues. The future of this research hopes to develop a diagnostic tool that could be used by trained clinicians to provide quantitative measures during a psychological assessment and for assisting the primary care physicians to determine whether to send the patient to a psychiatrist. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).