A b s t r a c t Objective: To describe the construction of the Suicide Behavior Attitude Questionnaire (SBAQ) which measures attitudes of nursing personnel towards suicide, and verify attitude differences among these professionals. Methods: The Suicide Behavior Attitude Questionnaire comprises 21 visual analogue scale items (beliefs, feelings and reactions on suicidal patients) selected from a pool of attitude statements generated by focal groups and experts' judgement. The questionnaire was completed by 317 nursing professionals who worked in a teaching hospital. Factor analysis and internal consistency were calculated. Results: Three interpretable factors were extracted, accounting jointly for 40% of the total variance: Feelings when caring for the patient, Professional Capacity and Right to Suicide, comprising 7, 4 and 5 items, respectively. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients were 0.7, 0.6 and 0.5, respectively. Greater Professional Capacity was reported by nursing assistants and those who had already took care of suicidal patients. The belief that a person does not have the right to commit suicide was stronger among older professionals, those who had never taken care of suicidal patients, those who had a family history of suicide, those who were Protestants and that used to go more frequently to church services. Conclusions: The Suicide Behavior Attitude Questionnaire proved to be user-friendly and quite a simple instrument to assess attitude towards suicide among nursing personnel.Keywords: Suicide; Attitudes; Health personnel; Nurse-patient relations; Questionnaires Resumo Objetivo: Descrever a construção do Questionário sobre a Atitude Frente ao Comportamento Suicida (QACS), que mede as atitudes do pessoal de enfermagem em relação aos suicidas e verifica as diferenças de atitude entre esses profissionais. Métodos: O Questionário sobre a Atitude Frente ao Comportamento Suicida compreende uma escala de 21 itens visuais análogos (crenças, sentimentos e reações em relação a pacientes suicidas) selecionados a partir de uma série de frases sobre as atitudes geradas a partir de grupos focalizados e o julgamento de especialistas. O questionário foi completado por 317 profissionais de enfermagem que trabalhavam em um hospital escola. Foram calculadas a análise fatorial e a consistência interna. Resultados: Foram extraídos três fatores interpretáveis, responsáveis em conjunto por 40% da variância total: Sentimentos ao tratar do paciente, a Capacidade Profissional e o Direito ao Suicídio, englobando 7, 4 e 5 itens, respectivamente. Os coeficientes do alfa de Cronbach foram 0,7, 0,6 e 0,5, respectivamente. Uma maior Capacidade Profissional foi relatada por assistentes de enfermagem e aqueles que já tinham cuidado de pacientes suicidas. A crença de que uma pessoa não possui o direito de cometer suicídio foi mais forte entre profissionais mais velhos, entre aqueles que não tinham nunca cuidado de pacientes suicidas, aqueles com histórico familiar, os que eram protestantes e costumavam freqüentar mais cultos religiosos. ...

Nursing personnel (N = 317) working at a general hospital attended a 6-hour training program on suicide prevention. They answered anonymously pre- and post-training the Suicide Behavior Attitude Questionnaire (SBAQ), which comprises 21 visual analogue scale items divided in three factorial subscales. The results indicated there were positive changes in the attitudes and these gains were significantly maintained at the 6-month follow-up evaluation. Improvement was in the Feelings and Professional Capacity subscales (ANOVA; p = 0.0001 and 0.01, respectively). There was no change on the Right to Suicide subscale. Because attitudes influence the effectiveness of health care personnel interventions, our findings may have important implications for the development of suicide prevention programs.

Aim:To verify whether nursing personnel working at a general hospital change their attitudes after a brief training course on suicide prevention and if these newly acquired attitudes persist over a 6-month time.Method:317 nursing personnel attended a 6-hour training program. They answered anonymously pre- and post-training the Suicide Behavior Attitude Questionnaire (SBAQ) which comprises 21 visual analogue scale items divided in three factorial sub-scales. The scores on each SBAQ sub-scale (dependent variable) were compared along the time using ANOVA for repeated measures with rank transformation. The time of the measurement and characteristics of the nursing staff were considered as independent variables.Results:There have been positive changes in the attitudes and these gains were significantly maintained at the 6-month follow-up evaluation. Improvement was in the Feelings and Professional Capacity factorial subscales (p = 0.0001 and 0.01, respectively). There was no change on the Right to Suicide subscale.Conclusion:It was possible to demonstrate positive changes in the attitudes of nursing personnel as assessed six months after a brief training course on suicide prevention. As attitudes influence the effectiveness of the health care personnel interventions our findings may have important implications for the development of suicide prevention programs.