Suicidal Ideation among undergraduates of University of Lagos Nigeria: Can Personal and Psychological Factors Predict the Relationship?

Abstract

This study investigated the association between personal factors (interpersonal relationship, subjective well-being,) and psychological factors (locus of control, academic resilience) in predicting suicidal ideation among undergraduates of university of Lagos, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was adopted. Three hundred and sixty-one undergraduates were randomly drawn from the undergraduates of the university (male =35.2%; female= 64.8%). Five scales were used for data collection, namely: Interpersonal relationship, (α=0.94), Locus of Control, (α =.34), Academic Resilience, (α = 0.90), Subjective well-being (α=0.9) and suicidal ideation (α = 0.93). Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and multiple regression were used to analyse the data at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that though suicidal ideation was low (43%), respondents reported thinking about dying and death a couple of times a month, with mean scores of 4.63 and 4.64, respectively. Majority (5.95%) of the respondents had experienced thoughts related to suicide (planning methods, writing suicide notes and wishing they were dead). No significant difference in suicidal ideation between male and female was found. There was significant joint contribution of the independent variables (interpersonal relationship, subjective well-being, locus of control, and academic resilience) to the prediction of suicidal ideation (F _{(4, 355)} =5.406, p<0.05). The outcome suggests that 16.5% of the total variance observed in suicidal ideation could be accounted for by both personal and psychological factors. Of the factors considered, academic resilience was seen to be most potent (β = -0.349; t =3.209, p<0.05) in predicting suicidal ideation among this cohort. The outcome behoves behavioural scientists to incorporate these identified factors in mitigating suicidal ideation among undergraduates in Nigeria universities.

Keywords: Suicidal ideation among youths, interpersonal relationship, subjective well-being, locus of control, academics resilience