Citation

Singh R, Baral KP, Mahato S. Asian J. Psychiatry 2020; 54: e102259.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102259

PMID

32619837

Abstract

Every 40 s one person die by suicide making global deaths due to suicide to 800,000 each year out of which 79 % are from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (WHO, 2018). World Health Organization reported that many of suicides occur during crisis. The identified risk factors of suicide including loneliness, discrimination, financial problems and mental health problems (WHO, 2018) are aggravated during crisis such as pandemic and disaster. The pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have intense effects on mental health of general people (Holmes et al., 2020; Tandon, 2020) and consequently, suicide rate rises.

Nepal, one of the LMICs, ranks seventh in the world and second in South Asia in terms of total number of suicides (Khatri, 2019). The country has been experiencing increasing deaths due to suicide each year with 5124, 5317, and 5785 suicides in the year 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively (Dhungana, 2020). During COVID-19 pandemic, suicide cases in Nepal have increased by 20 % and the rate of mental health illness is predicted to see a further rise after the pandemic (My Republica, 2020). Starting from 24th March 2020, within 74 days of lockdown measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19, on an average 16.5 people have lost their lives in a day while in the year 2019 the rate was 15.8 a day (The Jakarta Post, 2020). The increase in suicide cases is somehow linked to COVID-19 pandemic and its responses in Nepal...

Language: en