The increasing suicide rate is a serious problem in Korea. Because of increased awareness of suicidality as a problem and because completed suicide is the fourth leading cause of death, it is very important to assess the risk of suicide. The purpose of this review is to provide a systematic examination of predictive validity of measures of suicidal ideation and behavior. A number of instruments are described as useful for identifying individuals "at high risk" for suicidal behavior. However, the predictive validity for most suicide measures has not been established. The present review only includes suicide assessment instruments with published predictive validity. In addition to evaluating the suicide assessment with respect to predictive validity, the present review describes and summarizes the psychometric properties of each measure. In conclusion, because of the complexity of studying the risk of suicide and the paucity of well-designed studies, it is extremely difficult to compare and generalize these findings. In addition, only a few instruments, such as the Scale for Suicide Ideation, Suicide Intent Scale and the Beck Hopelessness Scale, have been found to be significant risk factors for completed suicide. Another problem in the field involves that there have been few suicide measures designed for elderly populations. Clearly, future research is needed to investigate the predictive validity of standardized measures for completed suicide, especially targeting elderly populations.