When Nyana Sabharwal was 10 years old, her mother began talking about the desire to kill herself. Then she saw her mother attempt suicide twice — once by hanging, and then again by jumping out of the window. By the time she was 13, she spent every hour away from home wondering if she would come back to find her mother dead or alive, until one night, she and her brother found their mother’s body hanging from the ceiling.
Suicide is getting more and more attention worldwide day by day. According to the World Health Organization, nearly one million people die from suicide every year, or a person dies every 40 seconds. Moreover, the rates of suicide have increased in the last 45 years by 60 percent worldwide. It is a leading cause of death in some countries. The group of highest risk is young people, aged 15-44, especially males.
The risk factors for suicide include mental illnesses, such as depression, violence, alcohol abuse, financial problems. Among other mental disorders are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, drug abuse and social background.
Nowadays it is a challenge for countries and world health care organizations to prevent suicides. A number of strategies implies care about population’s mental health, increased attention to risk groups, restriction of access to the means of suicide, improved access to social services and identification of people, suffering from suicide and help to him or her to cope with the problem.
In India, more than 100.000 lives are lost every year. The risk group is younger than 44 years old, especially males, though women die from suicide more often than in other countries. High rate may be understood as a reaction on serious social and economic problems of Indian society. But recent studies prove, that the real rate of suicide is nine times higher than official rate, because the registration system is not operative enough. The chosen method of suicide reflects personal characteristics, cultural and traditional values, seriousness of situation and motives. The most popular acts to end one’s life in the South India are hanging and posing.
In general, the goal of suicide prevention is to save the person from a despaired condition, when suicide is highly contagious. The person must be provided with careful treatment and medical intervention. It is important to remove the influence of impulse in suicide prevention. Well-timed help may be a decisive factor for a person, who wants to end her or his life. Individual may reconsider the values, actions and realize, that death is not a key to solving a problem. Every attempt of suicide or committed suicide must be reported to the police. People, who suffered from an attempt of suicide, or whose family members ended their life must be given professional medical care and required treatment.
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