Citation

Jatchavala C, Wiwattanaworaset P. Neuropsychiatric Investigation 2021; 59(1): 14-20.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021)

DOI

10.5455/NYS.20201208071811

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the social determinant, associated factors, and suicidal risk of university students who were psychiatric outpatients at a university hospital in southern Thailand, 6 months following the copycat suicide crisis among Thai university students in 2019.

METHODS: This time-series cross-sectional study was conducted 6 months after the crisis of copycat suicides among Thai university students. Psychiatric outpatients who were university students and accessed the ser-vice at the Prince of Songkla University Hospital in September 2019 were recruited, and their clinical data were collected, including the Thai version of suicide screening test (8Q score) through the hospital database system. R software was then used to conduct descriptive data and logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS: Of the 42 university students, the majority (92.9%) were Thai, Buddhist (85.7%), and female (61.9%). The main psychiatric diagnoses among them were depressive disorders (59.5%). Only physical comorbidities (10.5%) were significantly less than 6 months prior according to statistics (10.5/5) (P =.029). Most university students were at a lower risk of suicide (31.0%) with an insignificantly decreased mean score (6.5 [0-12.5]) and median (interquartile range) of suicide risk (10.1 ± 13.1) within 6 months (P =.25). Moreover, no factors were found associated with suicidal risk among university students, 6 months following the crisis of mimic suicide in March 2019.

CONCLUSION: Suicidal ideation among Thai university students decreased over 6 months following the copycat suicides in March 2019 and was not statistically significant. Thus, the effect of imitative suicidal behaviors may not have considerably reduced in 6 months. Moreover, no associated factors of suicidal ideation were found 6 months following the copycat suicides nationwide. © 2021, Istanbul Universitesi. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

adult; human; suicide; female; male; bipolar disorder; depression; anxiety; students; suicidal behavior; comorbidity; risk factor; outpatient; behavior disorder; human experiment; mental health service; physical disease; mental patient; psychiatric diagnosis; sensitivity and specificity; screening test; imitation; university hospital; Article; university student; time series analysis; young adult; social determinants of health; assessment of humans; Copycat suicides; Buddhist; copycat Suicide; follow-up studies; imitative behaviors; suicide screening test