자살에 대한 일반인의 태도에 관한 예비적 조사

A Preliminary Study on the Attitude Toward Suicides in Normal Persons

The authors examined test-retest reliability of a questionaire about the attitude toward suicide, originally designed by Domino and then investigated the attiudes toward suicide of 123 normal subjects by using the questionnaire. 1) Many of normal subjects thought that suicide is an abnormal behavior which should be prevented, and suicidal attempters are lonely and depressed and should undertake treatment to understand their inner motivations. They saw suicide as a very serious moral transgression and a behavior against the laws of God and/or nature. They did not believe that suicide occurs only in civilized societies and most suicide victims are older persons. They also denied the unconscious motivation of individuals to kill themselves out of patriotism or by dangerous sports. 2) Three factors from total 58 items were extracted by factor analysis after elimination of 9 items which revealed relatively low test-retest reliability. The first factor was consisted of 10 items about religious and ethical attitudes toward suicide. The content of the second factor, consisted of 5 items, was suicidal risk. The third factor was made of 5 items about whether suicide is a normal behavior or is a result of mental illness. 3) The religions of subjects exerted influences on the differences of the total scores of items related to the first factor and those related to the third factor. 4) The test-retest reliability of the second factor and the third factor was significantly low as compared with the first factor.