Psychosocial Predictors of Suicidal Ideation among School going Adolescents in Chennai

Abstract

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (2020), Tamil Nadu ranked second in terms of student suicides in the country after Maharashtra. Student suicides spiked all over the country, contributing to 8.2% of deaths in India. It becomes necessary to understand predictive/risk and protective factors of Suicidal Ideation that might help in preventing adolescents from committing Suicide and empower them and their caregivers. The current study aims at understanding the influence of Emotional Intelligence, Quality of Interpersonal Relationships between parents and adolescents and Social Isolation on Suicidal Ideation among adolescents in Chennai. Furthermore, the study attempts to fill a relative dearth of culturally relevant studies. Earlier studies have suggested that Parenting, Interpersonal Relationships and Isolation were indicative of Suicidal Ideation while other studies posited that Emotional Intelligence was a protective factor against Suicidal Ideation. An ex-post facto research design was used for this research. Convenience sampling method was used to select samples from various schools across Chennai (n=196). The data was subjected to statistical analyses and the findings showed that dimensions of Emotional Intelligence and Quality of Relationships with parents showed strong relationships with Suicidal Ideation among adolescents. Regression analysis showed that Specific dimensions of Emotional Intelligence and Quality of Relationships with parents emerged as significant predictors of Suicidal Ideation. Keywords: Adolescence, Suicide, Parenting, Quality of Interpersonal Relationships, Isolation, Emotional Intelligence, Suicidal Ideation