Purpose: Suicide risk assessment is a critical part of holistic nursing care, yet nurses may not acquire sufficient knowledge for suicide prevention in undergraduate courses or through in-service training. Evidence on nurses' preparedness and perceptions about in-hospital suicide prevention is scarce, so the need for training in general medical settings is unclear. We sought to explore the nurses' views about suicide prevention training and their perspectives on a structured risk assessment tool. Methods: The participants of the six focus groups were sampled from the Medical, Surgical and Emergency/Intensive Care Units of a medical centre in northern Taiwan. We conducted two 120-minute discussion sessions for each focus group consisting of 5-12 nurses drawn from across the wards and from each sector. A topic guide was pre-designed, piloted and revised to facilitate responses. Specifically, the validated Chinese SAD PERSONS Scale was discussed in group to evaluate its clinical applicability. All group processes were audio taped and transcribed for content analysis using Atlas.ti software. Results: Opinions of the 54 general nurses were grouped according to three themes: various aspects of the need for clinical suicide prevention education, perceived barriers to performing suicide risk assessment, and the applicability of a structured risk assessment tool. Conclusions: The findings provided evidence of a variety of needs relating to suicide prevention that should be addressed by clinical nursing education, based on the experience of practicing nurses. Nurses may consider using a brief suicide risk assessment tool to empower them to care for high suicide risk patients.