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BACKGROUND: Students are one of the most vulnerable groups to suicide. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a Bangladeshi study was conducted assessing their suicide patterns regarding gender-based associations. But how has the pandemic changed the Bangladeshi students' suicide patterns is not studied yet, which is investigated herein. Besides, for the first time, this study provides GIS-based distribution of suicide cases across the country's administrative district. METHODS: As Bangladesh has no suicide surveillance system, this study utilized media reporting suicide cases following the prior studies. A total of 127 students' suicide cases from March 2020 to March 2021 were finally analyzed after eliminating the duplicate ones, and data were synthesized following the prior studies. Arc-GIS was also used to distribute the suicide cases across the administrative district. RESULTS: Results revealed that female (72.4%; n = 92/127) was more prone to die by suicide than males. About 42.5% of the cases were aged between 14 and 18 years (mean age 16.44 ± 3.512 years). The most common method of suicide was hanging (79.5%; n = 101), whereas relationship complexities (15.7%), being emotional (12.6%), not getting the desired one (11%), conflict with a family member (9.4%), academic failure (9.4%), mental health problem (8.7%), sexual complexities (6.3%), scolded or forbidden by parents (3.9%) were the prominent suicide causalities. In respect to gender and suicide patterns, only the suicide stressor was significantly distributed, whereas the method of suicide was significantly associated with GIS-based distribution. However, a higher number of suicide cases was documented in the capital (i.e. Dhaka) and the northern region than in its surrounding districts. CONCLUSIONS: The findings reported herein are assumed to be helpful to identify the gender-based suicide patterns and suicide-prone regions in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic to initiate suicide prevention programs of the risky students.
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BackgroundThe suicide rate has increased during the pandemic in India. Moreover, several studies, especially press-media reporting suicide studies have been conducted but no systematic review has been attempted in this context. Therefore, the present study systematically investigated the risk factors associated with suicidal behaviors, and the method of suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.MethodsFollowing the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search was performed to include papers published up until September 30, 2022. From an initial 144 papers, 18 studies which met the inclusion criteria were included in the present review. The Pierson's method was used for quality assessment of the included studies in the present review.ResultsThe risk factors associated with suicide comprised: (i) socio-demographic factors (e.g., being aged between 31 and 50 years, male, married, unemployed), (ii) behavior and health-related factors (e.g., unavailability of alcohol and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, poor state of physical health and health issues, family disputes, relationship complexities, and sexual harassment), (iii) COVID-19-related factors (e.g., fear of COVID-19, COVID-19 test results, quarantine or isolation, financial hardship due to the pandemic, having influenza-like symptoms, experiencing stigmatization and ostracism despite testing negative, separation from family due to transport restrictions, misinterpreting other illness symptoms as COVID-19, saving the village from infection, watching COVID-19 videos on social media, online schooling, perceived stigma toward COVID-19, and being suspected of having COVID-19), and (iv) psychopathological stressors (depression, loneliness, stress, TikTok addiction, and poor mental health, suicidal tendencies, helplessness, and worrying). Hanging was the most common method of suicide. In addition, jumping from high buildings, poisoning, drowning, burning, cutting or slitting throat or wrists, self-immolation, medication overdose, electrocution, pesticide, and gun-shot were also used to carry out the suicide.ConclusionsFindings from this research suggest multiple reasons for suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic and knowledge of such factors could aid in developing suicide prevention strategies focusing the most vulnerable cohorts inside and outside India.
ABSTRACT
Suicide is an intentional act of injuring oneself, irrespective of the outcome. However, there are other forms of suicidal behaviour existing among the people. The year 2020 is a hard time due to COVID19 pandemic as it had created difficulty to many people especially the lower economic class people to meet their daily livelihood. The result is many poor victims committing suicide. The method used for committing suicide vary from region to region. However, cutting one's own throat to end their life is very rarely performed by the victims of suicide. A careful interpretation of the injury is required by the forensic pathologist to conclude the manner of the death in such deaths. Here we report one such case, and the manner is concluded after studying the injuries tediously in summation with the police investigation. © 2022, Journal of Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
BackgroundThe suicide rate has increased during the pandemic in India. Moreover, several studies, especially press-media reporting suicide studies have been conducted but no systematic review has been attempted in this context. Therefore, the present study systematically investigated the risk factors associated with suicidal behaviors, and the method of suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.MethodsFollowing the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search was performed to include papers published up until September 30, 2022. From an initial 144 papers, 18 studies which met the inclusion criteria were included in the present review. The Pierson's method was used for quality assessment of the included studies in the present review.ResultsThe risk factors associated with suicide comprised: (i) socio-demographic factors (e.g., being aged between 31 and 50 years, male, married, unemployed), (ii) behavior and health-related factors (e.g., unavailability of alcohol and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, poor state of physical health and health issues, family disputes, relationship complexities, and sexual harassment), (iii) COVID-19-related factors (e.g., fear of COVID-19, COVID-19 test results, quarantine or isolation, financial hardship due to the pandemic, having influenza-like symptoms, experiencing stigmatization and ostracism despite testing negative, separation from family due to transport restrictions, misinterpreting other illness symptoms as COVID-19, saving the village from infection, watching COVID-19 videos on social media, online schooling, perceived stigma toward COVID-19, and being suspected of having COVID-19), and (iv) psychopathological stressors (depression, loneliness, stress, TikTok addiction, and poor mental health, suicidal tendencies, helplessness, and worrying). Hanging was the most common method of suicide. In addition, jumping from high buildings, poisoning, drowning, burning, cutting or slitting throat or wrists, self-immolation, medication overdose, electrocution, pesticide, and gun-shot were also used to carry out the suicide.ConclusionsFindings from this research suggest multiple reasons for suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic and knowledge of such factors could aid in developing suicide prevention strategies focusing the most vulnerable cohorts inside and outside India.
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Background and Objectives: All medicine and healthcare undergraduates were encountered with terminations and delays of professional examinations. These alterations were on topmost of other tasks the COVID-19 pandemic carried out for instance not roaming, covered faces with masks and specifically segregation. This interruption of normal life was a major cause of mental health disaster and it is no surprise that medicine and healthcare undergraduate has had high rates of psychological effects including hopelessness, stress and suicidal thoughts. This study aimed to investigate the unmediated connection of anxiety and stress related mental health decline and suicide among medical and nonmedical undergraduates during the pandemic of covid-19. Methods: A multidiscipline online cross-sectional comparative study design was chosen for this study conducted from November 2020 to January 2021 with a pre-validated questionnaire to collect responses from sample size 1290. SPSS- 21 used for descriptive analysis of means, S.D, ANOVA and spearman's correlations. Forward step-wise model of linear regression applies for true significant bivariate relationship (p<.001) Results: The result shows that all three cohorts were affected. Among the non-medical cohorts, B-Pharmacy students had the high level (p<.001) of anxiety with suicide ideation response (n=200;39.2%), along with lowest level of envisions care (19.5%;p<.001) in pandemic. Control and independent variable had a strong negative effects on B-Pharmacy and medical students with p<.000. Conclusions: This study offered more data that the concerns, anxieties and uncertainties caused by pandemic COVID-19, don't roll out alone but remain as long-lasting problems demanding ongoing attention.
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BACKGROUND: It is said that psychological stressors have risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may contribute to suicidality. A few studies were conducted investigating suicidality amid the first wave of the pandemic in Bangladesh, but none of these studies explored the predictive role of the suicidality-related factors (eg, behavior and health-related variables, COVID-19 risk, fear of COVID-19). Thus, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of suicidality and the predictive models explaining suicidality variance among Bangladeshi young adults during the second wave of the pandemic. METHODS: An online-based cross-sectional survey was conducted during the second wave of the pandemic (between 1 and 13 April 2021; a year after the pandemic's inception in the country). The survey questionnaire collected information on socio-demographics, behavior and health-related variables, COVID-19 risk, fear of COVID-19, depression, anxiety, and suicidality. A total of 756 data were analyzed (male 59%; mean age 22.24 ±4.39 years), and hierarchical regression was performed considering suicidality as the dependent variable. A p-value <0.05 was set to be statistically significant with a 95% of confidence interval. RESULTS: About 8.2% reported having at least suicidal thoughts within the pandemic inception to survey time (one-year suicidal ideation). More specifically, 7.40% had only suicidal ideation, whereas 0.10% planned for suicide, 0.70% attempted suicide. None of the socio-demographic variables was significantly associated with suicidality. Taking drugs, performing less physical activity, poor self-reporting health condition, being comorbid, being at higher COVID-19 risk, having fear of COVID-19 infection, and suffering from depression and anxiety were significantly associated with a higher risk of suicidality. However, the final model including all of the studied variables explained a 17.1% (F=8.245, p<0.001) variance in terms of suicidality. CONCLUSION: Although this study reported a lower severity of suicidality than prior Bangladeshi studies conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, a portion of people are still at risk of suicide and they should be given attention.
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Emerging data from high and upper-middle-income countries indicate that suicide rates generally did not increase during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the pandemic's impact on suicide is complex. We discuss the nuances of this relationship, how it may evolve over time, and describe the specific steps that governments and societies must take to mitigate harm and prevent suicides in the late stages and aftermath of the pandemic.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Suicide Prevention , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & controlABSTRACT
PROBLEM: Suicide incidences among adolescents and youths during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns have been reported across the world. However, no studies have been carried out to investigate cumulative nature, patterns, and causative factors of such suicide incidences. METHODS: A purposive sampling of Google news between 15 February and 6 July was performed. After excluding duplicate reports, the final list comprised a total of 37-suicide cases across 11 countries. FINDINGS: More male suicides were reported (21-cases, i.e., 56.76%), and the mean age of the total victims was 16.6 ± 2.7 years (out of a total of 29 cases). About two-thirds of the suicides were from three countries named India (11-cases), UK (8-cases), and the USA (6-cases). Out of 23-student victims, 14 were school-going students. Hanging was the most common suicide method accounting in 51.4% of cases. The most common suicide causalities were related to mental sufferings such as depression, loneliness, psychological distress, and so forth, whereas either online schooling or overwhelming academic distress was placed as the second most suicide stressors followed by TikTok addiction-related psychological distress, and tested with the COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: The finding of the temporal distribution of suicides concerning lockdowns may help in exploring and evolving public measures to prevent/decrease pandemic-related suicides in young people.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/prevention & control , Communicable Disease Control , Mass Media , Suicide, Completed/statistics & numerical data , Adolescent , COVID-19/psychology , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Mass Media/statistics & numerical data , Psychological Distress , Social Isolation/psychology , Young AdultABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Recent research has demonstrated the psychological impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic among the general population. However, COVID-19-related suicides among healthcare professionals (HCPs) have yet to be investigated. FINDINGS: The present study utilized retrospective press media suicide reports and identified a total of 26 worldwide HCP COVID-19-related suicide cases (aged 22-60 years; 14 females; most of the cases from India). The cases comprised doctors (n = 11), nurses (n = 9), paramedics (n = 5), and one medical student. Being infected with the COVID-19 was the most common suicide reason, followed by work-related stress, and fear related to COVID-19 infection/transmission. Among the eight cases diagnosed with COVID-19, most were female (n = 6), and either doctors (n = 4) or nurses (n = 4). PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The present findings will be helpful for human resources departments in healthcare workplaces in ensuring HCP's mental wellbeing.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Suicide , Delivery of Health Care , Female , Humans , Retrospective Studies , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Many Indian COVID-19 suicide cases are turning the press-media attention and flooding in the social media platforms although, no particular studies assessed the COVID-19 suicide causative factors to a large extent. Therefore, the present study presents 69 COVID-19 suicide cases (aged 19 to 65 years; 63 cases were males). The suicide causalities are included as follows - fear of COVID-19 infection (n=21), followed by financial crisis (n=19), loneliness, social boycott and pressure to be quarantine, COVID-19 positive, COVID-19 work-related stress, unable to come back home due to lockdown, unavailability of alcohol etc. Considering the extreme psychological impacts related to COVID-19, there emerges a need for countrywide extensive tele-mental health care services.
Subject(s)
Betacoronavirus , Coronavirus Infections/psychology , Pneumonia, Viral/psychology , Quarantine/psychology , Suicide/statistics & numerical data , Adult , Aged , COVID-19 , Coronavirus Infections/virology , Economic Recession , Fear/psychology , Female , Humans , Incidence , India/epidemiology , Male , Middle Aged , Pandemics , Pneumonia, Viral/virology , SARS-CoV-2 , Suicide/economics , Suicide/psychology , Young AdultABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Dyadic suicide-pact is rare but possible incidence in the COVID-19 time. No prior evidences available on triadic suicide-pact, which is presented herein for the first-time. CASE PRESENTATION: An Indian family consisting of three members, committed suicide. There is no evidence of homicide-suicide, which suggests the cases to be mutual suicide-pact. However, the suicide risk factors can be evidently noted as (i) economic distress, (ii) feeling burden of disability and sick people, and (iii) being stubborn as of not getting hospital treatment. Poisoning is reported for the suicide method; besides, the victims left a suicide note. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The present case highlights the possibilities of further suicide-pacts in economically unprivileged family, whereas having disabled and/or sick people may add extra burdens in taking such extreme decision.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Suicide , Homicide , Humans , IndiaABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The global suicide occurrences have been aggravated because of COVID-19 crisis-related issues such as fear of infection, the financial crisis, being infected with COVID-19, loneliness, social boycott, etc. Although two studies reported about the seven dyadic suicidality cases (i.e., suicide pacts), child homicide-suicide has not been studied. CASE PRESENTATION: On 14 May, two dead bodies (i.e., a 30-years old Indian woman and her six-month-old baby) were found in a Riyadh apartment complex. The perpetrator (a person who kills the others and later commits suicide) - a trained nurse, was in search of a job. The woman's husband was recently retrenched from his technician job at a company in Madinah Airport. Her husband was admitted to a hospital with symptoms related to the COVID-19 infection four days before the suicide incidence. The 70-year-old mother-in-law alerted the neighbors after finding that the apartment is locked from inside and there was no response on knocking the doors. After this, the neighbors gathered and called the police. Police found two dead-bodies after opening the flat and suspected that the child was killed before the woman committed suicide. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the present findings, further child filicide-suicide possibilities in families with economically distressed and/or positive COVID-19 status are expected. Hence, proper financial supports, providing authentic information (COVID-19), and mental health promotional strategies are suggested for decreasing incidences of COVID-19 related infanticide-suicide cases.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/psychology , Fear/psychology , Infanticide/psychology , Suicide/psychology , Adult , Female , Humans , Infant , PandemicsABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to individuals fearing COVID-19 infection alongside conditions such anxiety, depression, trauma, and stress. For a small minority, such mental health factors can contribute to suicide. Here we report a novel reason for suicide and seemingly COVID-19-related - negligence in getting treatment by Bangladeshi healthcare providers. It was alleged that a woman committed suicide at a hospital because she was not treated and because doctors and nurses suspected she was infected with COVID-19 and did not want to get infected themselves. To help allay the fears among HCPs and the patients they are treating with COVID-19, a number of initiatives are suggested.