Suicide, a public health tragedy in need of a plan

Suicide is the most destructive behavior of humans. Usually there is no single reason for people to take their own life.

Several factors can increase the risk of suicide, such having a mental health disorder, depression, bipolar, disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and personality disorder. Some are psychosocial that lack of social support and sense of isolation also increase the risk of suicide.

These factors are significant why people have suicidal behaviour. For example the recent heart wrenching case that took place in Mehrauli, South Delhi, wherein a 33-year-old man namely Upendra Shukla murdered his sleeping wife and three kids including a two-month-old girl by slitting their throat with a knife, shook the entire nation from within. The accused also tried to take his own life but survived and got arrested.

This man has been reported to be a science teacher and was apparently depressed over his and his spouse's deteriorating health. He was not financially stable to afford all the expenditures.

For he committed this heinous crime while the actual reason yet to be disclosed. His crime however cannot be justified and convicted deserves a capital punishment.

Financial backwardness also is the big cause behind the suicide occurrence not only in India but also all around the world as according to the data published by the World Health Organization (WHO), 79 per cent of suicide occurred in low and middle-economic countries in 2016.

Failure in education or any examination leads a large number of students to commit suicide every year in the country. The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in its 2015 data made a shocking exposure that in India; one student commits suicide every hour.

So there is a desperate need in India for a major change concerning suicide cases as India accounts for a growing share of the world's suicide rate.

Rakhi Dandona, a researcher at the Public Health Foundation of India and her colleagues estimated suicide rates for both sexes in each state of India from 1990 to 2016 based on multiple sources, including official sample registration and vital registration surveys, medically certified causes of death, and verbal autopsy studies.

The research by Rakhi Dandona and colleagues reported in The Lancet Public Health in Sep, 2018, using data from the Global Burden of Disease, estimated the national age-standardised suicide death rate (SDR) for 2016 to be 17.9 per 100 000 population (14.7 per 100 000 among women and 21.2 per 100 000 among).

We need to start working on social norms to make a large-scale impact as the suicide is considered a taboo topic in some societies to discuss in public sphere. We always blame the government for everything but sometimes the responsibility lies on our own shoulders to battle with the problems and issues.

We need to commence such suicide prevention campaigns and policies that encourage the people to discuss the suicide openly that, it is a major public health problem and destructive for the society with far-reaching socioeconomic, political and emotional consequences.

Suicide prevention must be a subject matter in our daily discussions, let it be TV debates, public speeches or personal communication.