Study on prevalence of suicidal ideation and risk factors of suicide among patients visiting psychiatric OPD at Shree Birendra Hospital, Kathmandu Nepal

INTRODUCTION: Suicide is a global public health issue. Several environmental, psychosocial, behavioral factors along with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse have been associated with suicidal ideation and attempts. Childhood physical, sexual abuse, and health risk behaviors are also associated with suicidal attempts. The suicidal ideation prevalence varied from 1 to 20% and it varied with study population, geography, age group, gender, and other factors. The Beck suicidal ideation scale is an effective tool for assessing the major suicidal ideation with a six cut-off score. MATERIALS AND METHOD: 160 patients who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled into this cross-sectional study after random sampling among the patients visiting the Psychiatric OPD of Shree Birendra Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal. The Semi-Structured Interview Schedule (SSIS), Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS), and Kuppuswamy’s Scale were used to collect the data from the patients enrolled in the study. The Chi-square test and binary logistic regression analyses were used to identify and differentiate the factors associated with high suicidal risk. RESULTS: Out of total 160 patients, 65% (n = 104) were female, 92.5% (n = 148) were married, 61.9% (n = 99) were residing in urban area, 93.1% (n = 148) were Hindus, 74.4% (n = 119) patients were living in the nuclear family, 5% (n = 8) patients had family history of psychiatric illness and 10.6% (n = 17) patients were using the substance of abuse. In the Beck scale for suicidal ideation questionnaire, 87.5% (n = 140) patients had moderate to strong wish to live, 89.4% (n = 143) patients responded as they would take precautions to save a life, 88.8% (n = 142) patients had such ideation/wish for brief, 96.3% (n = 154) had not considered for specificity/planning of contemplated suicidal attempt, 91.9% (n = 147) patients stated that they would not attempt active suicide because of a deterrent example from family, religion, irreversibility of the act and 98.1% (n = 157) patients had revealed ideas of deception/concealment of contemplated suicide openly. 16.9% (n = 27) of participants were categorized as high risk for suicide while 83.1% (n = 133) patients were as a low-risk category for suicide based on the Beck scale for suicidal ideation scoring. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, this study found that most of the suicidal attempts were done as an act of impulse and it is higher among female and married individuals residing in the urban areas. This study did not establish any statistically significant association or differences among independent variables with the higher risk scoring in the Beck suicidal ideation scale.