To Örebro University

Suicide prevention and treatment opportunities often depend on interpersonal contact between patients and professionals. Presently, there is a lack of valid and reliable instruments to obtain the perspective of patients with suicidal ideation regarding their contact with professionals in mental health wards. This was a three-stage study to develop and psychometrically evaluate a questionnaire: the Contact with Nurses from the perspective of Patients with Suicidal ideation (CoNuPaS). First, the construct was defined by a systematic review, qualitative study, and face validity among experts. Second, the content was validated through a Delphi procedure with professional experts (n = 14) and cognitive interviews with hospitalized patients (n = 12). Third, using a sample of adult patients with suicidal ideation in the past year (n = 405), the psychometric properties were assessed by an exploratory factor analysis, a test-retest procedure, and the internal consistency. The CoNuPaS comprises 23 items and two subsections, to examine patients' perceptions of contact experiences with nurses (CoNuPaS-experience) and what they find important in that contact (CoNuPaS-importance). The subsections comprise four components: encountering a space to express suicidal thoughts and explore needs, being recognized as a unique and self-determining individual, encountering nurses' availability/information-sharing/transparency on expectations, and trusting nurses in communication about suicidality. Content validity scores were excellent (0.78-1.00); test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient and internal consistency were >0.90. Thus, the CoNuPaS demonstrated good psychometric properties. The availability of a valid questionnaire to examine patient-nurse contact in mental health wards is central to improving understanding of nurses' contributions to suicide prevention and suicidal ideation treatment.