Prevalence Of Suicidal Ideation And Associated Risk Factors Among College Students: Eritrea
Abstract Suicidal ideation is a common medical term and refers to the thoughts one has about taking his or her own life, with some degree of intent. Although a person may experience suicidal thoughts, it does not mean he or she is in imminent danger of committing suicide.it is influenced by many risk factors like gender, age, depression, family support and others. Suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt are significant among college students. Suicide ideation is considered to be an important precursor to later attempted and completed suicide [52] and is of major public health significance. So the purpose of the study is to assess the prevalence of suicidal ideation and its risk factors among 7 Eritrean colleges. This study was conducted on 466 college students and employed a cross sectional study design with stratification sampling. Students self-completed a questionnaire which included a brief demographic section and a section with MID, HADS, AUDIT, MSSPS and MSSI. THE data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. The overall occurrence of suicidal ideations in the study sample was 25.9%. The risk factors identified in the study were depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse and perceived social support, attending religious activity and satisfaction with the credit hours assigned were significantly associated with suicidal ideation and they were found to be as protective factors. While no significant differences among those with suicidal ideations in terms of gender, religion, study program, where you live. The results of this study highlight the importance of establishing prevention and intervention programmers on university campuses to create more awareness about suicide and offer more education to students on this topic in general, as well as to specifically offer counseling and support to students suffering from suicidal ideations.