| Abstract: | 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. |
