Prevalence of suicide ideation among adolescents and young adults in rural Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Suicide is a leading cause of death world-wide. However, adolescent suicidal behavior is a neglected public health issue, especially in low-income countries such as Bangladesh. The study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of suicidal ideation among adolescents in a rural community and to examine factors associated with suicidal ideation. A cross-sectional survey was carried out in 2013 among 2,476 adolescents aged 14–19 years, selected randomly from a rural community of Bangladesh. An adapted version of the WHO/SUPRE-MISS questionnaire was used to collect data in the Raiganj sub-district. A two stage screening was performed to identify the suicidal ideation cases. It was found that the life-time prevalence for suicidal ideation was 5 percent among adolescents. The majority of the adolescents with suicidal ideation were females 66 (52.8%), unmarried 103 (82.4%), and students 92 (73%). Suicidal ideation was statistically significantly associated with age, education, occupation, living with parents or others, and house ownership. Respondents who were aged 18–19 years, had secondary school certificate (SSC) and secondary school certificate (HSC) or higher education, were day laborers, had own house, and do not lived with parents had odds ratios of 2.31 (CI 1.46–3.65), 2.38 (CI 1.51–3.77), 4.15 (CI 2.41–7.14), 0.28 (CI 0.13–0.60), 0.14(CI 0.05–0.35), and 1.80 (CI 1.07–3.03), respectively. Among adolescents, the prevalence of life-time suicidal ideation was moderately high. Age, education, occupation, house ownership, and living with parents were statistically significantly associated with suicidal ideation. It is important to design and implement effective community based suicide prevention programs for adolescents in Bangladesh.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• rural
• suicidal ideation

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all the people who participated in this research. The authors would like to thank the NGO Career Planning & Human Resource Development Initiative (CaP&HuRDI) and the Ministry of National Science and Technology, Bangladesh for their financial help. We are also grateful to Professor Sadiqa Tahera Khanam for her careful revision of the manuscript. The authors would like to thank Mrs. Zakia and Abu Taleb for their help with data collection and data entry.