The Attitude of Psychiatric and Non-psychiatric Health-care Workers Toward Suicide in Malaysian Hospitals and Its Implications for Training.
OBJECTIVE
This research is aimed to examine the attitude of health-care workers toward suicidal patients in Malaysian hospitals, comparing responses from psychiatric and non-psychiatric workers, and to identify specific needs in suicide prevention and management training.


METHODS
This is a multi-site cross-sectional study. The authors conducted a survey based on a translated self-administered questionnaire to participants from seven core hospital departments.


RESULTS
While most health-care workers regardless of department and specialty took their duty to prevent suicide seriously, a large majority of them expressed negative attitudes such as finding suicidal behavior irritating, and more than half believed suicidal attempts were a way of making others sorry. However, psychiatric workers were less likely to have judgmental attitudes that included believing suicide attempters as being selfish or trying to get sympathy from others.


CONCLUSIONS
As there were more similarities than differences in health-care workers' attitudes toward suicide, recommendations on basic and continuous suicide prevention and management training among hospital workers were made. The interventions focused on improving knowledge, affective, and skill-based areas that were aimed to correct the wrongful understanding of and to minimize the negative attitudes toward suicidal individuals indicated by the study results.
National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ching Sin
CS
Siau
National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. weeleihum@gmail.com.
Lei-Hum
LH
Wee
Hospital Putrajaya, Ministry of Health, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Sapini
S
Yacob
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Seen Heng
SH
Yeoh
National Clinical Research Centre, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tassha Hilda
TH
Binti Adnan
National Clinical Research Centre, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Jamaiyah
J
Haniff
Institute for Health Behavioral Research, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Komathi
K
Perialathan
Institute for Health Behavioral Research, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Aziman
A
Mahdi
Institute for Health Behavioral Research, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Abu Bakar
AB
Rahman
National University of Malaysia Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Choon Leng
CL
Eu
National University of Malaysia Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Suzaily
S
Binti Wahab
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult; D000092864:Suicide Prevention
Attitude; Health-care workers; Psychiatric; Suicide; Training