Reasons for not acting on suicidal ideas.

Abstract

Suicide is a major health problem at present and depression is the most important cause of suicide. What does predispose a person to act on suicidal thoughts has reasonably been studied but little is explored about protective factors against suicidal acts. This study was aimed at finding important protective factors in depressed patients admitted in psychiatry unit of tertiary care hospital against suicide and their comparison with previous studies. Cross sectional descriptive study. The study was carried out between 1st March 2002 to 15th August, 2002 in the psychiatry department of Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar. All the patients admitted in psychiatry department of Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar meeting the ICD -10 criteria for depressive illness and with score greater than 17 on Hamilton depression rating scale were included in the study. Beck hopelessness scale and a modified version of reasons for living Inventory were administered. The Hamilton depression rating scale was used to assess the severity of depression. The data collected was labeled and analyzed with the help of SPSS version 8. The mean score on Hamilton depression rating scale for the sample was 23.30 + 4.32. The responsibility towards family was highly scored subscale of reasons for living inventory (RLI) as a whole as well as separately by males and females while religious beliefs were the next significant subscale of reasons for living inventory (RLI). Moreover, females significantly scored higher than males on fear of social disapproval. Responsibility towards family was the strongest protective factor in both males and females against acting on suicidal ideas in our population. Besides this, females had greater fear of social disapproval as compared to males.