Three psychiatric nursing professionals tested the
content validity of the questionnaires. In addition,
the content of the Awareness of Suicide Warning
Signs Questionnaire was also tested by factor
analysis and contrasted group comparison. Five
suicidal clue factors, including depressive presence,
self-harm attempt, readiness for death, concretization
of suicidal ideation, and negative emotion,
were extracted by factor analysis to account for
60.56% of the variance. Among 32 items of the
questionnaire, 11 pertained to depressive presence,
8 pertained to self-harm attempt, 6 pertained to readiness for death, 4 pertained to concretization of
suicidal ideation, and 3 pertained to negative
emotion. Depressive presence and negative emotion
are the suicidal clues of indirect behaviors.
Self-harm attempt, readiness for death, and concretization
of suicidal ideation are the suicidal clues
of direct behaviors. The contrasted group comparison
was made between 30 community volunteers
and 30 senior psychiatric nurses. The mean scores
obtained were 3.99 versus 4.43 (t = −3.405, P =
.001), showing a good validity. The Cronbach's
alpha of the questionnaire was .96, which also
showed a good internal consistency.