title: Beliefs about the genetics of suicide in Canadian students: cross-language validation of the Beliefs in the Inheritance of Risk Factors for Suicide Scale (BIRFSS).
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The genetics underlying suicidal behavior is becoming increasingly recognized and investigated. Convergent evidence towards this end has emerged from numerous research strategies (adoption, family, genome-scan, geographic, immigrant, molecular genetic, surname, and twin studies of suicide). The topic-related mental-health literacy (i.e. knowledge and beliefs) of professionals and laypersons, however, may lag behind this research progress, and data on this question are scant. The aim of the present study was therefore to further validate, in a cross-language setting, the novel 22-item Beliefs in the Inheritance of Risk Factors for Suicide Scale (BIRFSS), originally developed in German, which assesses beliefs about the genetics of suicide.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were collected from a mixed student sample from Canada (n = 288; 70.5% females, 58.0% studying psychology as a major or minor).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Factor analysis of BIRFSS items yielded a dominant first factor. Internal scale consistency was, however, only middling (lower than previously observed in Austrian samples). Although the structure of beliefs about the genetics of suicide seems to be complex, the Canadian sample's item-performance indicators corresponded strongly to those obtained in Austrian samples, thus indicating cross-sample and cross-language robustness of item statistics.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For the Canadian sample, BIRFSS scores were positively related to overall and specific knowledge about suicide and general beliefs about genetic determinism (convergent validity), whereas they were not (or only trivially) related to the Big Five personality dimensions, lay theories of suicide, locus of control, social desirability, religiosity, and political orientation (discriminant validity), and to several key demographic variables. Supplemental findings, study limitations, application possibilities, user recommendations, and avenues for further inquiry are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Psychological Research, School of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria. martin.voracek@univie.ac.at
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Voracek
authors.forename: Maryanne L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.forename: Lisa Mariella
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Loibl
authors.forename: Hasan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Gernot
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sonneck
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D015984:Causality; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires