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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Levels of knowledge about suicide facts and myths among younger and older adults | | Author(s) | Daniel L Segal |
| Journal title | Clinical Gerontologist, vol 22, no 2, 2000 |
| Pages | pp 71-80 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Attitude ; Age groups [elderly] ; Adults ; Comparison ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Although older people have the highest suicide rate of any age group, little is known about the kind of information available to them or their level of knowledge about suicide. The prevalence of misconceptions about, and differences in levels of knowledge of suicide are compared for 116 younger (age range 17-52) and 62 older (age range 55-79) people. Volunteer participants completed anonymously a 47-item suicide knowledge quiz, derived from the Revised Facts on Suicide Quiz (Hubbard and McIntosh, 1992) and several abnormal psychology texts. Responses were analysed for endorsement and differential endorsement as related to age. Using 70% correct per item as the criterion for adequate knowledge, results indicated that older people's knowledge was good on 16 items but poor for 31 items. Younger adults showed good knowledge on 19 items. Chi-square revealed that older people had poorer knowledge on 3 items and better knowledge on 3 items, compared to younger adults. Efforts should be made to dispel myths about suicide. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010420202 A |
| Classmark | EV: DP: BB: SD: 48: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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