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.

ResumoObjetivO. Determinar as prevalências de depressão e de comportamento suicida em indivíduos com câncer internados em um hospital geral universitário e fatores associados a essas condições. MétOdOs. O rastreamento de 5357 pacientes consecutivamente internados utilizou a Escala Hospitalar de Ansiedade e Depressão (HAD) e a seção comportamento suicida do Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). Análises univariadas, com ajustes para sexo e faixa etária, foram feitas tomando-se depressão e comportamento suicida como variáveis dependentes. ResultadOs. Nos 675 pacientes com câncer, a prevalência de depressão foi 18,3% (IC95% = 15,4 -21,4). O risco para suicídio estimado pela respectiva seção do MINI foi de 4,7% (IC95% = 3,2 -6,7). A prevalência de depressão foi maior entre pacientes com câncer do que nos demais pacientes internados (13,2%; p = 0,0009). Associaram-se à depressão (p < 0,05): sexo feminino, menor escolaridade, maior tempo da doença, dor, uso de psicofármaco e risco de suicídio. Associaram-se ao risco de suicídio: dor e depressão. COnClusãO. As prevalências de depressão e de risco de suicídio em pacientes com câncer aconselham o uso de instrumentos simples de rastreamento e a inclusão, na anamnese, de perguntas mais específicas sobre essas condições clínicas.

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Objective: To identify sociodemographic, psychosocial and clinical differences between men and women who attempted suicide and were seen at a university general hospital. Method: This is a non-controlled cross-sectional study, sub-project of the Multisite Intervention Study on Suicidal Behavior by the World Health Organization. A standardized interview that comprised psychometric scales was used. The comparison between genders was made by means of uni and multivariate logistic regression. Results: 210 subjects (68.1% women) participated. Women had worse scores on the WHO Well-Being Index (p = 0.005), the Beck Depression Inventory (p = 0.01) and the Psychiatric Disability Assessment Schedule (p = 0.03). In the multivariate logistic regression, men presented more mental disorders due to alcohol and drug use (26.1% vs 7%, p= 0.02) and used alcohol at the suicide attempt more frequently (28.3% vs 16%, p = 0.03). Men reported that most of the time they had been feeling "active and vigorous" (50% vs 22%, p < 0.001). Women had had more physical and sexual abuse (27% vs 8.7%, p = 0.01). Conclusion: There are some distinctive characteristics between men and women who attempt suicide. Such differences may also be present in the general population and suggest there is a need for further studies, as well as the adoption of different strategies in suicide prevention for men and women.