The Hindu : Suicide rate high among younger age group: study

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Suicide rate high among younger age group: study

By M. Dinesh Varma

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM March 31. The worrying suicide proneness among the younger age groups has been one of the major findings of an on-going study being conducted by Health Action by People (HAP), a city-based NGO.

In separate incidents in the city last month, two students committed suicide by consuming poison, one a ninth class student while the other victim was a teenage girl studying in a polytechnic institution in Tamil Nadu.

In another incident recently, a 26-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman, both neighbours, were found dead hanging from the two ends of a shawl knotted to a tree in the compound of a suburban household.

The HAP study, which surveyed the population in Varkala Municipality, found that suicides were the third principal cause of death after heart attacks and cancers in the surveyed population.

``The data on suicides was actually a spin-off from our study which had the broader agenda of tracking down the contribution of lifestyle diseases to the current mortality rates. Nonetheless, the data has confirmed that suicides do account for a disturbingly large number of deaths in Varkala,'' C.R. Soman, chairman of HAP, told `The Hindu'.

The rates are also more or less consistent with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures, which put out the suicide rate in Kerala at 30.5 per lakh of the population while the national rate was only 11.2 per lakh of the population.

The main aims of the HAP study on a subject size of 1.62 lakhs in over 33,000 households in the seven panchayat areas are to detect the contribution of heart attacks, strokes, cancers, hypertension, diabetes and cancers to overall mortality rate, assess the prevalence of these diseases and keep track of births.

``We have been able to develop a fairly reliable baseline database on the major life events of the population,'' said V.K. Ramankutty, HAP executive director. An estimated 700 deaths occur in the surveyed community on an annual average. The significant finding on the suicide phenomenon was that the median age at which persons ended their lives was 39.5 for males and 32.5 for females.

In other words, 50 per cent of suicides was committed by males below 39 years of age and females under 32 years of age.

Of this segment, 25 per cent of the males committed suicide at the age of 28 or less while a quarter of the women ended their lives at the age of 22.5 or less.

According to Dr. Soman, the stress levels and suicide proneness among youth would be higher in an urbanised environment in comparison to township like Varkala.

In Thiruvananthapuram city, children committing suicide following a poor performance at the cross-roads SSLC examination is a disconcertingly regular feature.

In fact, shooting anxiety levels among students are partly reflected in deluge of calls received at the `Thrani' telephone helpline in the city.

During this period, students have been found to come under great mental distress.

Psychologists and counsellors aver that students calling a couple of days before the announcement of the results are usually worried about how well they fare, while post-result publication calls are from those whose results fall short of expectations.

A large number of children are unable to cope with results that are below their expectations. Parental pressures also add to the agony of the students, with many developing depression and anxiety about the future.

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