Moreover, evidence indicates that patients in rural areas in
Taiwan are at higher risk for inadequate health care services
(Huang et al. 2005). Furthermore, low rates of health care
service use in rural China were associated with higher rates of
suicide (Phillips et al. 2004). Similarly, US veteran outpatients
with serious mental illness were reported to have lower
rates of health care use if they lived far from Veterans’
Administration psychiatric facilities, increasing their risk of
negative health outcomes and mortality (McCarthy et al.
2007). However, little evidence is available on predictors of
suicide attempts among rural outpatients with schizophrenia
being followed up through community-based health care
services (Kasckow et al. 2010). Therefore, a key question is
whether risk of suicide attempts can be predicted in rural
outpatients with schizophrenia. To address this question, this
study was designed to explore a simple way for communitybased
nurses to predict the likelihood of suicide attempts
among rural outpatients with schizophrenia.