Abstract
BackgroundAttitudes and knowledge about suicide may influence psychiatrists’ management of suicidal patients but there has been little research about this issue in China.MethodsWe used the Scale of Public Attitudes about Suicide (SPAS) – a 47-item scale developed and validated in China – to assess knowledge about suicide and seven specific attitudes about suicide in a sample of 187 psychiatrists from six psychiatric hospitals in Shanghai. The results were compared to those of 548 urban community members (assessed in a previous study).ResultsCompared to urban community members, psychiatrists were more likely to believe that suicide can be prevented and that suicide is an important social problem but they had more stigmatizing beliefs about suicidal individuals and felt less empathy for them. The belief that suicide can be prevented was more common among female psychiatrists than male psychiatrists but male psychiatrists felt more empathy for suicidal individuals. Only 37% of the psychiatrists correctly agreed that talking about suicide-related issues with an individual would not precipitate suicidal behavior and only 41% correctly agreed that those who state that they intend to kill themselves may actually do so.ConclusionsMany psychiatrists in Shanghai harbor negative attitudes about suicidal individuals and are concerned that directly addressing the issue with patients will increase the risk of suicide. Demographic factors, educational status and work experience are associated with psychiatrists’ attitudes about suicide and, thus, need to be considered when training psychiatrists about suicide prevention.
Highlights
Attitudes and knowledge about suicide may influence psychiatrists’ management of suicidal patients but there has been little research about this issue in China
The results show that compared to female psychiatrists male psychiatrists were less likely to believe that suicide can be prevented, more likely to believe that suicidal behavior is an effective method of controlling others, and more likely to feel empathy for persons with suicidal behavior
Our study found that psychiatrists from low-level institutions were more likely than psychiatrists from a tertiary psychiatric center to hold discriminatory beliefs about suicidal individuals and to believe that suicide was an important social problem
Summary
Attitudes and knowledge about suicide may influence psychiatrists’ management of suicidal patients but there has been little research about this issue in China. To our knowledge there has never been a study anywhere that compares attitudes about suicide between community members and mental health professionals – an approach that would help identify the socio-cultural context from which psychiatrists’ beliefs about suicide have arisen. As a first step to addressing these issues, in the current study we administered a validated, culture-specific scale that assesses attitudes about suicide to a large sample of psychiatrists working in Shanghai and compared the results to those of urban community members from Tianjin (another large city in China) who were administered the same scale
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
