Nursing students' attitudes to suicide and suicidal persons: A cross‐national and cultural comparison between Turkey and the United Kingdom
Authors: Flood Chris , Yilmaz Mualla , Phillips Louise , Lindsay Tracy , Eskin Mehmet , Hiley Janet , Tasdelen Bahar 
Published: April 2018

Accessible summary

What is known on the subject?

Mental healthcare requires acceptance of suicide and flexible attitudes especially in relation to caring for people who have suicidal thoughts or who have attempted suicide.

Nurse education programmes for student nurses can shape positively the attitudes of individual participants, yet limited research exists on what nursing students' attitudes currently are towards people who are suicidal.

What this paper adds to existing knowledge?

This paper adds to the developing international comparative work that is providing a greater understanding of cultural perceptions of suicide amongst students.

This paper along with existing literature highlights a potential relationship between certain religious belief systems and their potential to be protective against suicide. At the same time, such religious belief is more likely to be associated with more judgmental attitude towards suicidal behaviour.

This paper using a validated research tool, devised by a research psychologist, scored for the first time, individual student attitudes towards caring for people that are suicidal, whilst establishing the overall differences between the two countries from which the data are collected.

What are the implications for practice?

This paper offers potential explanations for differences in nursing students' attitudes between the UK and Turkey. Disparities under discussion include gender, type of education, culture and religion. This is an important discussion in the consideration of nurse education worldwide. It is recognized that students may come from a variety of different backgrounds, with varying personal and social attitudes to begin with; yet, there exists the potential to positively influence overall attitudes towards service users whilst learners are still within a training programme, consisting of education and practice experiences. The merits of a specialist mental health nurse training programme and its potential to impact more favourably on students attitudes deserve more attention and research.

Introduction

Suicide is a major public health issue internationally, and the impact of positive or negative attitudes amongst the mental health professional workforce warrants scrutiny. The study aimed to examine English and Turkish nursing students' attitudes towards people with suicidal behaviour.

Method

This cross‐cultural study reports on attitudes of 240 nursing students towards suicide in Turkey and 82 nursing students in the UK. A reliable and valid 24 item “Attitudes towards Suicide Scale” and “Social Reactions to Suicidal Persons Scale” were used to measure attitudes.

Results

The UK nursing students were found to display more accepting attitudes to suicide, and scored higher on acceptability of suicide, seeing suicide as a solution and open reporting and discussion of suicide subscales than their Turkish counterparts. Turkish nursing students scored higher on punishment after death and hiding suicidal behaviour subscales than the UK students. Turkish nursing students scored significantly higher on deterring subscale of reactions to a suicidal peer scale than the UK nursing students.

Implications for practice

It is vital for nurse students to develop positive acceptance of suicide through education, reflection and clinical supervision to be more therapeutic towards suicidal patients.