DATA collected during a study on Suicide Ideation of Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa conducted by Regional Psychosocial Support Initiatives (REPSSI) shows that Zimbabwe has the highest rates of adolescents who think of committing suicide compared to other countries in the Sub-Saharan region.
By Michael Gwarisa
Suicidal ideation is when one thinks about killing him/herself. According to the report, a number of variables were associated with an increased risk for suicide ideation in the study. These include being older, being female, not being in school, being orphaned, not having a tap at home, not looking after sick, not having electricity at home, not looking after younger children, having been or gotten someone pregnant, not looked after by mother or father, being married, having more days hungry, not wanting to marry and feeling pressured to marry.
While the study shows that Zimbabwe recorded a decrease in suicides ideation rates, the country still accounted for the highest prevalence of suicide ideation in the region.
The data was collected in 11 sub-Saharan African countries in which REPSSI works and these are Angola Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The countries with the highest prevalence of suicide ideation at baseline were Zimbabwe (24 percent), followed by South Africa (16 percent), Kenya (12 percent), and Angola (10 percent). At endline, the highest prevalence rates of suicide ideation were found in South Africa (20 percent), Zimbabwe (13 percent), Kenya (11 percent), and Angola (10 percent). The biggest decreases were found in Zimbabwe (-11 percent) and Zambia (-4 percent), while increased prevalence was noted in South Africa (4 percent), Mozambique (4 percent), and Eswatini (3 percent).
The total number of respondents in this sample was 2266. Overall, the number of respondents who said that they had experienced thoughts that they would be better off dead or hurting themself in some way for “Several days”, “More than half the days”, or “Nearly every day” was 21 percent at baseline (471) and 17 percent at endline (392). This indicates a high prevalence of suicide ideation in this sample, although this did decrease significantly from baseline to endline. The number of respondents who said they felt this way nearly every day was 57 at baseline (3 percent) and 55 at endline (2 percent).
Females made up the majority of the sample (62 percent). The demographic characteristics (sample size, gender, and age) of respondents who reported that they had experienced suicide ideation and the respondents who did not are presented in the table below,” the report reads.
In accordance with the literature, this study found that suicide ideation was associated with significantly reduced psychosocial wellbeing (decreased resilience, increased depression, and decreased self-esteem). At baseline, respondents with suicide ideation had significantly lower resilience scores, on average, compared to respondents who did not have suicide ideation.
On average, respondents with suicide ideation had significantly higher depression scores compared to those without suicide ideation at baseline (9.5 vs 4.5)10 as well as at endline (10.0 vs 3.7) Contrary to the findings on resilience, average depression scores decreased by 0.8 points for the NSI group but increased by 0.5 points for SI group from baseline to endline.
Respondents with suicide ideation had significantly lower average self-esteem scores compared to those without suicide ideation at baseline (26.6 vs 29.5)12 as well as at endline. Both the SI and NSI experienced similar increases in self-esteem from baseline to endline (0.6 and 0.5, respectively), which were statistically significant.
