Abstract

 For many years in Lithuania the rate of suicide mortality has been remarkable in magnitude, especially in the young population. Social and public health determinants, risk behaviour issues, prevention and control of suicide in teenagers and young people needs urgent attention.
 The aim of the study was to investigate the self-reported perception of young people - the university students concerning suicide, the myths and reality on this phenomenon, and the links between suicidal behaviour and endorsement of myths about suicide. The self-reported survey was conducted in the university settings. The results of the survey showed that young people lack knowledge about the phenomenon of suicide and suicidal behaviour, and they still believe myths about suicide. The study revealed that one-fifth of young people had suicidal thoughts, and boys along with urban residents and suicidal family were at higher risk. Half of the students surveyed self-reported suicidal peers in their environment. Young people lack knowledge on suicide prevention, and preventive events. The study revealed that raising awareness, obtaining knowledge, and providing information to young people on the phenomenon of suicide, suicidal behaviour, and warning signs of possible attempt and suicide risk are the priority issues. Suicide prevention activities on individual, community, local and national levels need to be addressed.
Highlights
Suicide among young people aged 15 to 29 years takes the second place in the structure of deaths after road traffic injuries, and accounts for 8.5% of all deaths (WHO, 2016)
THE LINKS BETWEEN SUICIDAL BEHAVIOUR AND ENDORSEMENT OF MYTHS ABOUT SUICIDE IN YOUNG PEOPLE Birute Strukcinskiene, Vaiva Strukcinskaite, Alona Rauckiene-Michaelsson stated that they “disagreed” with such statements as: “If a person wants to commit suicide, he/she wants to die” (182/51.6%), “Discussions about suicide publicly can encourage someone to commit suicide” (182/51.6%), “Suicide occurs for one specific reason” (200/56.7%)
About one-third (134/38%) of students are properly informed and disagree that “Most suicides occur without any warning signs”, and a quarter (90/25.5%) of the respondents think wrongly, stating that most often suicide occurs suddenly, without any warning/seeking for help signs
Summary
Suicide among young people aged 15 to 29 years takes the second place in the structure of deaths after road traffic injuries, and accounts for 8.5% of all deaths (WHO, 2016). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 3 times more men than women in highincome countries (Lithuania has been included among them since 2012 as well) die from suicide (WHO, 2016). Lithuania has been at the forefront of suicide rates in Europe for a number of years and does not leave the top five in the world (WHO, 2016; GHO, 2018; OECD, 2018; Institute of Hygiene, 2018). In 2017, mortality from intentional injury (suicide) (codes X60-X84 by ICD-10 AM) in Lithuania was 26.4/100.000 population (in 2016 – 28.7/100.000) (45.6/100.000 – for men and 10.0/100.000 – for women) (Institute of Hygiene, 2018). It is noticed that in Lithuania, mortality from suicide increases during the economic recession, as a consequence of unemployment, social insecurity and economic instability (Strukcinskiene, Raistenskis, Radziuviene & Strukcinskaite, 2018)
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