Suicidal ideation and associated factors among university students

Objective To explore the incidence of suicidal ideation among university students and to evaluate the relations among suicide idea, family relationship, professional satisfaction, mental health status and coping style, and to provide evidences for suicide prevention.Methods Totally 5524 freshmen and sophomores were selected from a university in Chengdu city with stratified random sampling and surveyed with Symptom Checklist-90(SCL-90), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire(SCSQ), and a questionnaire about general information during September and October 2014.Results The incidence rate of suicide ideation was 7.8% among the participants.The history of childhood trauma(odds ratioOR=1.524, P=0.001), with severely disharmonic familial environment(OR=1.826, P=0.029), having strained relation with his/her mother(OR for severe strain=4.301, P=0.004; OR for moderate strain=1.672, P=0.012), dissatisfaction with the major to be engaged in(OR=1.366, P=0.022), somatization(OR=1.617, P=0.001), depression(OR=6.247, P=0.000), hostility(OR=1.475, P=0.002), psychosis subscale(OR=1.531, P=0.020), and other factor(OR=1.641, P=0.000) were the risk factors of suicidal ideation; whereas interpersonal sensitivity(OR=0.674, P=0.014) and positive coping style(OR=0.575, P=0.000) were the protective factors.Conclusion There is a high incidence of suicide ideation in university students.Social relationship and psychological health are important factors for suicidal ideation among students.