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 twenty-four 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 behavior subscales than the UK students. Turkish nursing students scored significantly higher on deter ring 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
