Suicide literacy and attitudes toward psychological help-seeking: a cross-sectional study of students
ENObjective: Higher education students express high levels of suicidal ideation. However, data on students’ knowledge of suicide and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help are lacking. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate students’ suicidal ideation, suicide literacy and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and to assess whether these variables were interrelated. Methods: Higher education students completed an online survey that consisted of 12 questions on suicide literacy (based on the Literacy of Suicide Scale), the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale and the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale. Results: A total of 2004 students completed the survey. Female students and biomedical students showed the highest suicide literacy and most positive help-seeking attitudes. Higher study year was associated with more positive help-seeking attitudes. Art students expressed the highest levels of suicidal ideation. Suicide literacy had a weak positive correlation with help-seeking attitudes (Spearman’s rho ¼ 0.186). Conclusions: Suicidal ideation, suicide literacy and help-seeking attitudes may differ according to student’s gender, study year and study field. Better suicide literacy may promote psychological help-seeking behavior. Keywords: Attitude, psychological help-seeking, suicide literacy, student, suicidal ideation, survey, cross-sectional Date received. [From the publication]
- Pereinamojo amžiaus jaunimo (studentų) psichikos sveikata. Literatūros apžvalga / Ieva Palačionytė, Gintarė Žilinskaitė, Sigita Lesinskienė, Vilius Rutkauskas. Visuomenės sveikata 2023, Nr. 2 (101), p. 9-15.
- Suicidal ideation in university students in Lithuania amid the COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective study with pre-pandemic measures / Odeta Gelezelyte, Evaldas Kazlauskas, Julia Brailovskaia, Jürgen Margraf, Inga Truskauskaite-Kuneviciene. Death studies. 2021, Latest articles, p. 1-10.
