Attitudes and perceptions of teachers and medical students regarding suicide

Abstract

Introduction: The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are around one million deaths by suicide a year worldwide, more than the total sum of deaths caused by wars and homicides, which results in one death every 40 seconds. Despite the existence of several scientific publications on suicide prevention, there have been studies showing that health professionals are not trained to adequately care for individuals at risk of suicide. Objective: This study aimed to understand the attitudes and perceptions of medical school students and teachers regarding suicide. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, descriptive study, with a quantitative and qualitative approach, approved by the Research Ethics Committee, which assessed a sample of 180 students attending the 8th and 11th semesters and 57 teachers from different semesters of the evaluated medical courses. The data were obtained by applying the Suicide Behavior Attitude Questionnaire (SBAQ), in addition to a sociodemographic questionnaire. The data were submitted to descriptive and analytical statistics. Results: Regarding professional capacity, the scores were low for both students (median 5.5) and teachers (median 5.25). Students who had seen someone exhibiting suicidal behavior (p = 0.002) and those attending the more advanced semesters (p = 0.04) felt more confident when treating patients at risk of suicide. There was a significant difference regarding the Right to Suicide factor among students who said they were religious (p = 0.001), as also among the teachers who attended religious services with a higher frequency (p = 0.02). Conclusions: We conclude that students and teachers have had little experience with suicide in the assessed medical courses, which contributes to low level of training and the feeling of insecurity, indicating the need to give more importance to the subject in the undergraduate medical school, aiming to allow the acquisition of knowledge and skills for a competent and preventive medical practice regarding suicide.