2019, Vol. 1, Issue 2, Part B

Aim: To estimate the prevalence of suicidal ideation in this crucial group in humanities/arts and medical students and compare the two, as well as generate additional data on gender predisposition based on a self-answered questionnaire.

Materials and Methods: This is quantitative research conducted in two colleges situated in northern India. It is a cross sectional study. One of the colleges is an arts/humanities college while the other is a medical college. The consent forms were then collected following which they were given the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) to fill.

Results: The overall prevalence was calculated and found out to be 13.5 percent in all of the college students. Furthermore, 50 students met the cutoff of equal to or more than 2 points specifically for item 1 on the questionnaire which taps into lifetime suicide ideation and/or suicide attempt which comes out to be 25 percent.

Conclusion: Before devising suicide prevention programmes, further research on prevalence, demographics, causative agents, risk factors and associated psychiatric disorders is required so as to devise an integrated system of interventions across multiple levels within society. Suicidal ideation also points to underlying psychiatric conditions like depression, bipolar disorder etc. It is important to diagnose these as early as possible.