Depression And Suicidal Ideation: Awareness And Experience Among Students Of Tertiary Institutions In South-South Nigeria

AIM: Depression and suicidal ideation: Knowledge, perception and determinant among the students. METHODS: A cross-sectional analytical study was carried out among 406 students of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State. The respondents were selected by multistage sampling method; all the students were stratified based on the faculties, departments and year of study. The sampling ratio for each year of study was calculated and a proportional allocation was carried out. Simple random sampling was applied to select the number of students from each college and year of study by using computer generated numbers. Structured, pre-tested, interviewer-administered questionnaire were the tools used for data collection. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0 and level of significance was set at p < 0.05. RESULTS: Almost all, 98.5% and 80.3% of the respondents had good awareness on depression and suicidal ideation respectively, 12.1% had been diagnosed of depression, 11.3% experienced feeling down, depressed or hopeless nearly every day and 7.5% had intention of acting on thoughts about killing themselves. CONCLUSION: Most of the respondents had good awareness about depression, a few diagnosed of depressive illness and about a tenth of them have had intention of acting on thoughts about killing themselves. Therefore, government at all levels and policy-makers should prioritize preventive interventions especially among vulnerable population. The Plan will include nationally agreed strategies relating specifically to depression and suicidal ideation.