Comprehensive psychometric examination of the attitudes towards suicide (ATTS) in South Korea.

Nam-Ju Ji,Yeon-Pyo Hong,Weon-Young Lee

doi:10.1186/s13033-016-0035-0

Nam-Ju Ji, Yeon-Pyo Hong + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-016-0035-0

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Abstract

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the Korean version of attitudes towards suicide (ATTS) on a group of university students, which would contribute to the evaluation of the ATTS as a useful tool of measuring attitudes toward suicide in South Korea with very high suicide rates.MethodsThe subjects of the study were 195 undergraduates at Chung-Ang University, South Korea in 2013. The measure for assessing public attitudes towards suicide was ATTS made up of 34 items in English and the Korean version of it was produced by forward and backward translation procedure. To identify any factors unique to South Koreans’ attitudes towards suicide, we applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to the data from 195 university students and was followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess construct validity of the Korean version. The internal consistency of the scale was assessed using Cronbach’s α and the assessment of the test–retest reliability was performed by intraclass correlation coefficients.ResultsOn the EFA analysis, were excluded, the tool had 11 factors (32 items), accounting for 62.99 % of the total variance in participants’ responses. CFA failed to support 11-factor model of the scale. Six out of 11 factors were acceptable in terms of both internal consistency and test–retest reliability.ConclusionsSix factors of the Korean version of the ATTS had acceptable content validity and reliability. However, on the whole, it did not have good construct validity and thus further investigations are needed to develop a scale measuring true public attitudes toward suicide in South Korea.

Highlights

The aim of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the Korean version of attitudes towards suicide (ATTS) on a group of university students, which would contribute to the evaluation of the ATTS as a useful tool of measuring attitudes toward suicide in South Korea with very high suicide rates
The aim of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the ATTS on a group of university students, which would contribute to the evaluation of ATTS as a useful tool of measuring attitudes toward suicide in South Korea with very high suicide rates
ATTS was predominantly used in Europe to measure the attitudes toward suicide [16, 17], but in recent years has been used globally including within Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan [8, 10, 11, 13, 18], as well as Africa [9, 19] and others

Summary

Introduction

The aim of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the Korean version of attitudes towards suicide (ATTS) on a group of university students, which would contribute to the evaluation of the ATTS as a useful tool of measuring attitudes toward suicide in South Korea with very high suicide rates. As the attitude is influenced by diverse factors, it is extremely difficult to measure attitude for suicide accurately. This is a very important matter because by being able to measure the attitude, we can find vulnerable people to suicide and a group or community requiring suicide prevention.

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