In disquieting signs of the extended impact of COVID-19 driving more youths to suicidal thoughts, there has been a sharp rise in suicide attempts among those aged 14-35, according to data sourced under the Right to Information Act from health and police records.
Between January 1 and December 31, 2020, 1,573 suicide attempts by teens and young adults were registered at the State-run Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute (IGMCRI) alone, according to the data sourced from medical records by the Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL), a youth-oriented organisation with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
More women (857) than men (716) accounted for the suicide attempts in the 14-35 age group.
“These numbers suggest an alarming jump from previous years for the 14-35 age segment and perhaps can be correlated with the psycho-social impact of the pandemic,” said TYCL administrator Suresh Krishna.
Given that the data was sourced from just one government hospital, the magnitude of the problem could be much more, counsellors said. While precise figures of suicide attempts in this demographic segment for a pre-pandemic year to quantify the extent of increase in 2020 were not immediately available, the estimation in some studies that suicidal attempts are 20 times higher than the completed suicides offers a pointer to the magnitude of the multi-dimensional malaise.
In fact, the increase in suicide attempts among the younger age segments presents a depressing sub-text to the relative improvement in the overall mental health situation in the Union Territory. After topping the country’s suicide death charts a few years ago, Puducherry has improved to the fourth place, according to new data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Puducherry, which had the country’s highest suicide rate of 43.2 per lakh of population in 2015 against a national rate of 10.6, has registered suicide rates of 33.3 per lakh in 2016, 40.1 in 2017, 33.8 in 2018, 32.5 in 2019 and 26.3 in 2020.
Meanwhile, research literature from JIPMER points to two broad trends of the pandemic phase — the demographic shift in suicides, completed or attempted, involving the age groups between 31 and 50 years, and the mode and setting chosen for the extreme step, said Vikas Menon, a faculty member at the Department of Psychiatry, JIPMER.
Dr. Menon, who co-authored four papers on various aspects of COVID-related suicides in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry and the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry during 2020-21, said one of the studies that analysed media reportage on suicides in India and Bangladesh — that went into lockdown virtually at the same period — found that the two most common modes of death by suicide were hanging (47.6%) and jumping from height (19.2%).
Besides, of all suicides, 35.7% occurred in institutional settings, 13.9% in homes, 9.9% at places near their homes and 40.3% in places like hotel, railway tracks and wells.
Deeper examination
“The figures are certainly worrisome, even accounting for the fact that a large proportion of suicide attempts reported to a large hospital such as IGMCRI or the General Hospital may involve those from places falling in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. We have asked psychiatry and mental health experts to undertake a deeper examination into the reasons for these high numbers and devise interventions,” Director of Health G. Sriramulu said.
A combined analysis by TYCL of RTI data, media reports and its own Youth Helpline call records suggests that though suicide rate is declining, suicides among Puducherry’s youths, including attempts, seems to be rising gradually as borne out by the figures for 2015-2020.
TYCL also found that the major triggers for suicide ideation were frustration in life, family problems, economic and health issues. The analysis also showed that the youth in rural regions were at an equally high suicide risk but were worse off than the urban youth in terms of access to mental health resources and services.
Police records showed that rural suicide deaths in the 14-35 age segment accounted for 111 of the total 221 deaths in 2018, 137of the 223 deaths in 2019 and 105 of the 235 deaths in 2020.
Towards addressing the lacuna of access in rural areas, TYCL recently introduced a mobile mental health clinic. The aim is to identify and sensitise vulnerable people through effective outreach of first-line mental health services and address the root causes of suicide among the rural young people. The mobile clinic will be deployed across all commune panchayats of Puducherry and provide mental health counselling, career and entrepreneurship guidance and education-related support.
“We have piloted the mobile unit on a thrice-a-week schedule to cover one commune a day. Depending on need, we will expand it to a week-long operation,” Mr. Krishna said.
TYCL’s Youth Helpline had been initiated as a safe space for youth and address socio-economic and emotional determinants of youth suicide with the support of professionals and community stakeholders. Between 2017 and June 2021, the helpline has logged more than 1,040 calls primarily relating to general counselling, job assistance, academic/career guidance and entrepreneurship enquiries, said YuvaYazhini, coordinator of the mobile clinic.
Apart from TYCL’s helpline 9655507090 (9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday), those in mental distress can reach out to Sneha’s round-the-clock suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.
