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Abstract
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Suicide is one of the leading preventable causes of premature mortality globally (Naghavi, 2019). India accounts for around 17% of global deaths due to suicide (Kamalja and Khangar, 2017). Suicidal behavior is shaped by a complex set of risk and protective factors. These include the factors that operate at the individual, familial, and community level. The COVID-19 pandemic is arguably the worst healthcare crisis that the world has witnessed in the past several decades. Both, the concerns related to the pandemic as well as the response to address the same, have contributed to the distress associated with this public health challenge (Sher, 2020).
Rapid transmission of the infection and a limited understanding of the disease coupled with the lack of an approved treatment created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty leading to increased psychological distress in the population (Grover et al., 2020). This is reflected in a high rate of psychiatric morbidity reported across different sections of population in the recent publications (Luo et al., 2020). Additionally, restrictions imposed as part of the lockdown to contain the spread of the infection across different regions of the world created financial and economic challenges. Limited recreational and socialisation opportunities since the beginning of the pandemic are expected to undermine the coping ability of the population to address the stress posed by the pandemic. This situation is further compounded by the limited availability and accessibility to the mental health support services. This is especially true of the Low- and Middle- income countries that had limited mental health resources even prior to the start of the pandemic. Further, there was a disruption of existing mental health services due to reorganization or diversion of resources for COVID care, and hesitancy among people in visiting treatment facilities due to travel restrictions and fear of acquiring the infection (WHO, 2020).
Language: en |