An Analysis of Risk Factors Affecting Suicidal Ideation among Higher Education in Malaysia using Analytic Hierarchy Process

Abstract

Suicide can be defined as an act of self-injury with the intent to die. According to World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that more than 700 000 people end their life every year. Suicide becomes a critical social problem in recent years and it is one of the key reasons for death among university students. Generally, the prevalence of suicidal ideation among university students is ranged from 1.3% to 32.7% worldwide. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the risk factors for suicidal ideation among university students and rank them based on the significance level so that the students with these characteristics can be identified promptly and proper actions can be taken to help them. In this study, we had discovered 18 risk factors for suicidal ideation through systematic literature review and these factors were ranked based on the importance level using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. As a result, we found that the most important factors that lead to suicidal ideation were prior suicide attempts, mental disorder and negative life events. In contrast, gender and residential area were the least important reasons for suicidal ideation. Thus, the implementation of AHP method enables us to compare various risk factors effectively.