Suicide prevention a collective responsibility

Globally, over 800,000 people die by suicide every year. Humanity must bear the responsibility for not doing more to prevent these suicides. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH

What you need to know:

  • Many of those that kill themselves have reached a point of despair and hopelessness.

  • The inability to find someone who understands this and discusses it non-judgmentally would worsen the symptoms and hastens them towards a suicide attempt.

  • We need to talk more about our inner world of thinking and feeling, and we need to be more caring towards our friends and relatives who are going through tough times.

On Tuesday this coming week, we will mark the World Suicide Prevention Day. The theme this year is ‘Working together to prevent suicide’, in the realisation that everyone has a role to play in preventing suicide and improving our collective quality of life. Mental health advocates across the globe agree that simple things we can do like asking our friends and relatives if they are okay, or providing an opportunity for people to discuss their life challenges in a caring and safe environment, can go a long way in preventing people from acting on thoughts of killing themselves.

800,000 YEARLY

In Kenya, this day comes at a time when we are collectively reflecting on the impact of mental ill-health on our population and how these unaddressed challenges are hindering our growth as a nation. Indeed, President Uhuru Kenyatta, in his Madaraka Day address on the First of June, indicated that the problems of suicide, substance abuse, and other mental disorders must be dealt with as a matter of priority, and directed the health ministry to take measures to implement policies and programmes to deal with them. Globally, over 800,000 people die by suicide every year. In my view, these are all potentially preventable deaths, and humanity must bear the responsibility for not doing more to prevent these suicides. In Kenya, while a formal national survey of mental health has never been carried out, all community-based surveys conducted in different regions have uniformly reported high rates of suicidal behaviour. A study we conducted in western Kenya a few years ago found that about one in six people in the study location had ever attempted to kill themselves. Since the population in this study was largely rural and peri-urban, we can surmise that the same pattern would be replicated elsewhere in this country, and that things could be particularly worse in the larger cities.

COMPASSIONATE

There are many misconceptions about suicide that fuel the stigma that then continues to drive the phenomenon. For instance, many people fear discussing suicide with someone they think is mentally unwell because of the misconception that doing this will escalate the risk of the person going ahead with the plan. They think that asking about suicide would ‘plant the seed’ in the patient’s mind, so to speak. The truth, however, is that discussing suicidal ideation and the reasons behind it actually enable a person to unburden themselves and gain perspective into their problem, thereby reducing the risk of suicide.

A significant proportion of people who die by suicide have seen a health practitioner in the weeks preceding the suicide. The difference between those who go ahead and kill themselves and those who do not is that a health worker discussed thoughts of suicide with the patient, and perhaps helped develop a plan to deal with the underlying problem. Many of those that kill themselves have reached a point of despair and hopelessness, and the inability to find someone who understands this and discusses it non-judgmentally would worsen the symptoms and hastens them towards a suicide attempt.

The message this week as we contemplate strategies to prevent suicide is that we need to talk more about our inner world of thinking and feeling, and we need to be more caring towards our friends and relatives who are going through tough times. A more compassionate world will be a happier world!

Lukoye Atwoli is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Former Dean, Moi University School of Medicine; [email protected]