Beliefs in the Inheritance of Risk Factors for Suicide Scale: Development, Reliability, Stability, and Convergent and Discriminant Validity

As no scale for assessing beliefs in the inheritance of risk factors for suicide is available, a 22-item scale was constructed, its contents rated by experts in a validation survey & administered to samples of 70 medical & 165 psychology students in Austria. Medical students held stronger beliefs in the genetics of suicide than psychology students. Internal scale consistency & test-retest reliability were assessed as adequate. Factor analysis of the 22 items yielded a dominant first factor. Scores were positively related to knowledge about suicide but for the most part unrelated to lay theories of suicide, political orientation, religiosity, & social desirability. (32 refs.)