PREVALENCE AND CORRELATES OF SUICIDE IDEATION AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN NYANZA REGION, KENYA

Abstract

Cases of completed suicide have been on the rise especially among the university students in the recent past. The focus of this research work was to look at the prevalence and correlates of suicide ideation among the university students in Nyanza region with an aim of preventing the ideation from reaching suicidal attempt and completed suicide. The study was guided by the following objectives; To determine the prevalence of suicide ideation among university students in Nyanza region, to compare the prevalence of suicide ideation in relation to university and year of study, to determine gender and age differences in relation to suicide ideation, to examine the correlates of suicide ideation and finally to determine how the correlates vary among individual universities. The study was justified by the fact that early detection of suicide ideation can help in reducing the cases of suicide in universities. The study was based on the Three Step Theory of Suicide (3ST) by Klonsky, May and Saffer. The study was guided by pragmatism philosophical assumption. Correlational research design was employed. Purposive sampling was used to select four public universities from Nyanza region. Stratified sampling was used to select undergraduate students and thereafter simple random sampling was used to select 1477 students from the four universities with the guidance of sample size table developed by Cohen, Manion and Morrison. Data was collected using student questionnaire, interview schedule as well as existing counseling records and data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS V20). Descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were used and the quantitative data was analyzed using chi square, linear regression and ANOVA at .05 level of significance while the qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The study findings indicated that suicide ideation is prevalent among university students (23.6%) in Nyanza region. The prevalence differs depending on the university (x2=p<.05) but the prevalence was not related to the year of study (p>.05). There was gender difference in relation to suicide ideation with female students being more ideators (x2=p<.05), however suicide ideation was not related to age of the student (p>0.05). The linear regression result indicated that sexual abuse, romantic break up, alcohol addiction, HIV/AIDS, elections and cyber suicide are predictors of suicide ideation while financial crisis and Covid 19 are not predictors of suicide ideation. The ANOVA values indicated that there is variation in sexual abuse, romantic breakup, Covid 19, alcohol addiction, HIV/AIDS, election and cyber suicide depending on the university while there was no variation in financial crisis experience.The study recommends that university counselling department should create more awareness on the issue of suicide, its effects and how students can cope with day to day challenges so as to prevent suicidal thoughts. The study also recommends increase in the number of university counsellors to cater for the needs of the university students