Korean J Biol Psychiatry.  2019 Oct;26(2):71-78. 10.0000/kjbp.2019.26.2.71.

Factor Structure of Attitudes Toward Suicide (ATTS) of Adults: Based on a Nationwide Survey in South Korea

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. aym@snu.ac.kr
  • 2Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
  • 3Department of Psychiatry, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea.
  • 4Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea.
  • 5Institute of Human Behavioral Medicine, Seoul National University Medical Research Center, Seoul, Korea.

Abstract


OBJECTIVES
Suicide is a complex phenomenon not only caused by the individual's mental illness and economic situation, but also occurred in sociocultural contexts and relationships around the individual. Therefore, the attitudes, which include collective norms, thoughts and feelings of a population, toward suicide play a fundamental role in the prevention of suicide. Factor structure of Attitudes Toward Suicide (ATTS), developed by Renberg, is also various in different sociocultural contexts. This is the first study to investigate factor structure of ATTS along with nationwide sample of Korean adults.
METHODS
This study analyzed the factor structure and reliability of ATTS in 1500 regionally stratified Korean adults. Exploratory factor analysis was performed by using principal axis factoring and varimax rotation.
RESULTS
The selection of 33 ATTS items based on internal consistency and communality was conducted. Five factors were analyzed, which were named "˜Good reason,'"˜Negative gaze,'"˜Predictability,'"˜Means of escape,' and "˜Common secret,' respectively. Explained total variance was 41.94%, and the internal consistency ranged from 0.516 to 0.740.
CONCLUSIONS
Each of the five factors contains different semantic dimensions. Consistent with previous studies, factors containing permissive attitude toward suicide was high in those with history of suicidal thought and of suicide attempt. It is notable that the "˜Good reason' showed higher score in elderly. This may be related to socioeconomic or physical adversities which have been considered the major cause of suicide in elderly.

Keyword

Suicide; ATTS; Factor analysis; Permissive attitudes; National survey on suicide

MeSH Terms

Adult*
Aged
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Humans
Korea*
Semantics
Suicide*
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