Only 2 scales exist for measuring attitudes toward suicidal behaviour. Because of theoretical & methodological limitations of both scales, the SEDAS was constructed to offer an alternative instrument. The semantic differential scale, from which the SEDAS was devised, consisted of 36 items (pairs of adjectives) constructed to measure attitudes towards the suicidal behaviour of different actors in various situations. It was administered to 142 Duth SOS-telephone volunteers for 7 different actor/situation sets. Item analysis reduced the number of suitable items to 15. Simultaneous component analysis revealed 2 dimensions on which the actor/situation sets were scored: health/illness & acceptance/rejection, jointly accounting for 47% of variance. Psychometrics of the instrument in terms of internal consistency, item-rest correlation, & test-retest correlation are acceptable to good. It is concluded the SEDAS may be of value in population surveys. (21 refs.)