Students Suicides-Can’t We Stop This?

Dear Editor,

Suicide is defined as self-killing, which is a crime. There is an increase in the incidence of suicide among the student population in India in recent years, with a rate of about twenty six suicides within 24 hours [1]. In fact our country was labeled as the suicidal capital of South-East Asia by World Health Organisation [2]. This is a very important public health concern and there should be steps taken protect the youth of our country. A major reason for all these suicides are stress, which may be due to familial pressure, social stigma; interpersonal problems with friends, finance, guilt, or shame. It may be academic stress too. Most of the students’ ill-manage stress by substance abuse, which causes neurobiological changes and influence emotions. Under the influence of the substance such as alcohol, the wish for death might increase. As the students are not aware of how to manage the stress and to whom to report about their stress, they suffer with chronic stress and ultimately enter into a state of depression. If depression is not managed properly, it in turn increases the tendency of suicide [3,4].

Hence, it is recommended that the stress management must be adopted by the academic institutions to monitor, assess and counsel their students on regular basis. There is a requirement to establish a stress management committee to assess the stress levels of the students at the time of admission itself and offer pre-counseling. While pre-counseling, students should be briefed about the professional course so that they are prepared about the professional journey they are going to embark upon [5]. At the same time, their stress levels have to be recorded and those with high stress should be provided with special care and mentored by expert faculty. Stress management committee should conduct regular awareness programs where students should be made aware of different stress management methods so they can select the one which is most suitable for them. Further, it was also suggested to improve the green spaces in the campus which also helps the students to relieve stress [6]. The stress management committee should comprise of a psychiatrist, advocate, faculty who are trained in stress management, holistic medicine experts and social activist. The educational institutional committee should train the faculty and parents in understanding the present generation students. It is the need of time to accommodate a stress management committee as a part of the curriculum in the educational institutions to limit the suicidal rates in our country.

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