Suicides by young adults a ‘growing concern’

Suicides by young people in the prime of life continue to be a cause of concern in India, with figures from the recently released National Health Profile, 2018, showing that these numbers continue to be significant.

According to the report, which is based on data for the year 2015, out of the total 1,33,623 suicides recorded that year, 44,593 (33.37%) of people were between the ages of 30 and 45.

According to the comparable data from National Health Profile 2015, based on data for the year 2014-15, a total of 1,34,799 suicides were recorded of which 45606 (33.8%) were of young adults.

“Suicide rates are increasing significantly for young adults including male, female and transgenders in a wider population,” the report says.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young adults globally; the data from India appears to corroborate that.

Suicide among young people is a growing concern, say experts. It is important to pay attention to the behavioural pattern as suicide is not always an impulsive decision, they add.

“There could be clear warning signs that people contemplating suicide give. If anyone talks about self-harm or suicide, it is important to take them seriously and to evaluate the risk factors for the same,” said Dr Samir Parikh, director, mental health and behavioural sciences, Fortis.

And while the report shows the proportion of children under the age of 14 committing suicide may have reduced from over 2% in the 2015 edition to less than 1%, experts say this is another emerging area of concern.

Children who make verbal statements such as ‘I hate my life’; ‘Nothing matters anymore’; ‘There’s no way out’; ‘It would be better if I were dead’, etc., might be seriously contemplating self-harm or suicide, particularly if these statements are made with increasing frequency, they add.

“Instead of overlooking these signs as attention seeking tactics, or not taking them seriously, it is important to be vigilant to these signs as they may be desperate cries for help by the child or adolescent,” says Dr Rajesh Sagar, professor, department of psychiatry, AIIMS, Delhi.