Let's talk about suicide

Every year about 700,000 people take their lives

Two years ago, I did a study on depression in the University of Port Harcourt. The study wwas on depression and its prevalence amongst undergraduates. The reason I conducted the study was because there was this trend of people taking pesticides to take their lives. It was te era of the so-called "sniper.***

I did a study with a sample size of 353 students and from the study females were more depressed than males. I also dod a study involving students in 6 departments ; Medicine and surgery, Engineering, Nursing, Linguistics , Human anatomy and English department. From the study, I observed that students in Medicine and Engineering had higher rates of depression.

Another thing I observed in the study was that those who had repeated a class or had a resit were more depressed compared to their counterparts. Those who were in departments that were supposedly more tasking experienced more episodes of depression.

Well, during that period, about 5 students who took their life in Nigeria were from Medicine and Engineering with medicine having more deaths compared to engineering.

As a matter of fact, the girl who took sniper in my school and died was an engineering student however, she was suffering from chronic kidney disease..

I am yet to publish this study, although it has been approved and so I intend on publishing it before the end of the year.

In this post, I will be talking about suicide and how to prevent it as the month of september is orl suicide prevention month.

What is suicide?

Suicide is death caused by causing harm to one's self. When a person attempts to take his or her life and succeeds, the person is said to have committed suicide. Suicide is a very serious public health issue as it has been observed to be a leading cause of death in the United states and in the world at large.

How common is suicide?

CDC
One person commits suicide every 11 minutes
In recent times, people attempting suicide have become so rampant. According to CDC, suicide rates increased by 30% between the year 2000 and 2018 and then declined from 2019 to 2020. According to the World Health Organisation,suicide is the fourth leading cause of death amongst the age group 15-19 years. Suicide has become so common that every year about 700000 deaths attributed to suicides. According to CDC, suicide is the leading cause of death in the United states of America. In the United States alone, over 45000 people committed suicide in 2020.

Sadly, Nigeria has the highest suicide rate in Africa. An interesting statistics from WHO says that 77% of the total number of suicides were from low to middle income countries.

What predisposes one to suicides?

By Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Domain, Wikimedia

According to different studies, suicides have been seen to be common to certain groups of people. They include;

• People who have a chronic disease: According to Science Direct Daily, young people aged 15-30 with chronic disease were three times more likely to attempt suicide. Interestingly, statistics have shown that for every successful suicide, there have been many attempts. The girl who took her life in my school had a bad kidney and had parents who couldn't afford a transplant.

• People with financial problems: overwhelming debts have been observed to be a major cause of suicide.

• People with chronic pain and illnesses

• People who just experienced a stressful event like loss of a loved one, a relationship breakup and do not see any hope of moving forward

• People with mental disorders - Severe depression has been linked with suicide attempts as well as bipolar disorder.

• People with a family history of a mental disorder- Family history of depression have been seen to be closely associated with suicide and suicide attempts. Also, people who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder have also been linked with suicide and suicidal ideations

• Young people who identify as lesbians, gays, or bisexual tend to have a higher rate of suicides compared to their heterosexual counterparts.

• Some people in certain occupations like mining, have been observed to have a higher rate of suicides compared to other occupations.

• People who live in rural areas have also been said to have higher rates too. Although, this might be highly debatable. A point that can be raised is that they don't have access to quality health care.

It is also worth noting that the most important risk factor for suicide is a previous suicide attempt. Once there is a previous suicide attempt, there is a high chance that the next one will be a success.

What are the warning signs to look out for?

By United States Navy, Public Domain, Wikimedia

For every person who kills themselves, many more try to kill themselves. People are most likely to commit suicide if they have already tried to kill themselves.

People who have tendencies to commit suicide exhibit early signs that are very subtle to identify. The problem is that most times people tend to ignore these subtle signs. It takes an observant person to notice these signs.

• One of the earliest sign is always talking about suicide. These people say things like I wish I were dead or things like killing mysekf woud solve this probem

• Another sign to look out for is seeing them in possession of things that can facilitate their death. For example, a person who doesn't take sleeping pills suddenly has a stockpile of these drugs.

• In addition to the above signs, when people start having suicidal tendencies, they tend to withdraw from social contact and want to be on their own.

• They also tend to have a labile moods. What most people call mood swings. They are very happy on some days and very down on other days. However, this is generally common amongst people with bipolar brain disorder. A condition where people are either extremely happy or extremely sad. A spectrum of mania and depression.

• Another symptom worthy of note is the increase in the use of alcohol or drugs. Once you see a person who has been experiencing very low moods and all of a sudden is drinking a lot, you should watch carefully and try to remove anything that can help facilitate the process of suicide.

Other symptoms or signs to look out for include;

• Change of daily routine as people with severe depression are not able to do what they previously enjoyed doing. So they lack energy to do things.
• Trouble focusing or thinking clearly
• Thinking of no way out of a problem and the only way is suicide.
• Changes in eating or sleeping pattern.
• Self harm like cutting or mutilating themselves

A man who has cut himself at different point on his arm

Children and teenagers also commit suicide.

This was a bit of an eye opener to me as it is rare in my part of the world. However, it is a matter of great concern. It is worth noting that children and teens commit suicide and this happens most times after a stressful event like loss of a loved one or sexual abuse. These circumstances are ore like triggers What may seem minor for an adult may be very serious for a child and this is why it is important to be observant. Problems in school or loss of friendship has been observed as a cause of suicide in children.

Pexels
Some circumstances have been linked with higher rate of suicides in teenagers and kids and tey include;

• Bullying
• Teenage pregnancy
• Chronic conditions like a cancer or a condition without a cure. In places like Africa, where stem cell transplant is not so common, sickle cell disease is one condition that can cause severe depression in kids
• Physical or sexual abuse- children who were vivtims of sexual abuse tend to have bouts of depression.

What are the common methods of suicide?

By Manos Bourdakis - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, wikimedia

According to WHO, about 20% of suicide are due to pesticide ingestion. This method of suicide has been observed to be common in low and middle income countries. The famous ***Sniper ***is a pesticide. Other methods include the very commo hanging one's self and also use of firearms. A knowledge of the common methods employed is seful in preventing suicide.

By Bryan Gosline from Seattle, USA - Day 26: Suffocation, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia

By José Guadalupe Posada - Wikimedia

Pexels

How can suicide be prevented?

I always say that prevention of any condition startts with education. Health education is the key to prevention of ,ost conditions.

Educating people about the early signs and methods of committing suicide can help reduce the rates dramatically. It can also help people know when, where and how to seek care.

By United States: Department of Defense - Samh Huston, Public Domain, Wikimedia
The World Health Organisation devised a 4 step approach in prevention of suicide. They are;

• Limit access to the means of suicide. Pesticides and firearms should not be given to anyone.
• Interact with media for possibility of suicide- meaning that any case of suspected suicide should be reported to the media so that adequate steps can be taken.
• Foster socio-economic life skills in adolescents like training children to be more resilient and more positive minded.
• early identity, assess, manage and follow up anyone who is affected by suicidal behaviours. A mini mental state exam can diagnose this very fast.

It is important to note that suicide prevention involves every sector of the community and does not solely rely on the doctors. The government has a role to play so does the community as well as the family.

Other forms of prevention include;

• Seeking care as soon as possible. Parents sould seeek care for their children as soon as they notice a persistent change in the mood of their wards.

• Establishing a support network will go a long way. A support network is similar to a mastermind. This helps you to see a way out of some problems. Support groups like Alcoholic anonymous have helped bring people out of conditions related to alcoholism.

I guess thats all for this post. This post was written in other to make people aware of the gruesome impact of suicide and also in honor of World suicide day which was on the 10th of September.

Thank you for reading.

References

• World health Organisation
• Center for Disease control
• Kids health
• National institute of mental health
• Mayo clinic
• Medscape
• Science daily