Mental health services crucial
At least 101 students of tertiary educational institutions died by suicide last year and two in three of them were males, found a study.
Sixty-five of the deceased were male students, according to the Aachol Foundation study.
Experts opined that the figures reveal the dire need for better access to mental health services.
During the pandemic, increased social, financial, and family pressures were some of the major drivers behind the deaths by suicide of male students.
The data was revealed yesterday at a virtual press conference titled "The Shocking Upsurge in Suicide Cases among University Students: The Liability of Stakeholders", organised by the Aachol Foundation.
The study was prepared with data collected and compiled from approximately 50 newspapers and online portals.
At least 79 died by suicide in 2020. The organisation did not have concrete figures for the years prior to 2020 but said 11 tertiary-level students died by suicide in 2018 and 19 in 2017. The figures might suffer from underreporting, it said as a disclaimer.
Prof Kamal Chowdhury, programme director of Nasirullah Psychotherapy Unit, department of clinical psychology, Dhaka University, blamed the pandemic for the increased number of suicide cases.
At least 62 of the deceased were students of public universities.
Another shocking finding was that Dhaka University had the highest number of such deaths, nine. Jagannath University had six and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology had five.
It was also found that 12 medical students (which make 11.88 percent of the overall data) had died by suicide last year.
According to the data, third- or fourth-year undergrad students made up over a third of all those who died by suicide, indicating that uncertainty, career-related worries, and social pressure were factors that led to frustration and mental health issues among students.
The monthly data show that the suicide rates in Bangladesh are higher in winter (14.85 percent) than in the summer (1.98 percent).
Tansen Rose, founding president of the Aachol Foundation, stated that the inability of students to adapt to an uncertain future may be classified as the primary catalyst of the deaths by suicide.
The study recommended incorporating mental health issues and services into primary health care.
Other recommendations include the inclusion of mental health-related lessons from primary to university levels, the establishment of a national hotline for those at-risk, launching of a special app that allows anyone to quickly seek advice of a psychologist, providing basic mental health training to community clinic health workers, and lowering the cost of psychiatric counselling and medications.
Comments