ATTITUDES TOWARD SUICIDE: THE EFFECT OF SUICIDE DEATH IN THE FAMILY*

There have been few reports on the effect of suicide death on family members ’ attitudes toward suicide. In order to estimate the extent to which suicide death affects attitudes toward suicide among family members of suicides, data of 264 informants from a case-control psychological autopsy study were analyzed. The results showed that there were no significant differences in attitudes toward suicide, measured by the General Social Survey’s (GSS) four questions, between informants of suicides and informants of living controls, between family members of suicides and family members of living controls, or between family members of suicides and non-family members of suicides. Our findings did not support the hypothesis that suicide death affects the attitudes toward suicide in suicides ’ family members. However, some factors were found to be related to the pro-suicide attitudes measured by the four questions included in the GSS. *The study was supported by the NIMH grant (R03 MH60828)