Adolescent suicide needs to be recognised as a major public health problem.

A second year medical student of Gandhi Medical College in Hyderabad committed suicide during her exams. P Hemlatha hung herself from the ceiling fan in her hostel room.

A 15-year-old boy set himself on fire in Ahmedabad. Santosh Baniya was unable to cope with the fact that both his parents were HIV positive.

A cotton farmer hung himself from a tree in Dahegaon, Maharashtra. Manohar Kelkar, like so many others of his ilk, was neckdeep in debt.

Suicide is one of the major causes of death around the world but only recently have doctors realised how widespread it is in India. An article published in the medical journal Lancet in 2004 reported that the rate of suicide in southern India was frighteningly high. It accounted for a quarter of the deaths among young men and more than half the deaths among young women. The study was carried out by doctors at the Christian Medical College in Vellore and found that the average suicide rate for young women was 148 per 1,00,000 and for young men 58 per 1,00,000.

“This study should be carried out in other parts of India as well,” said Dr Anuradha Bose who led the research team. “The high suicide rates emphasise the need to recognise adolescent suicide as a major public health problem, with an urgent need for intervention,” she said.

A research team from the MKCG Medical College in Orissa and Dr Pinnamaneni Siddhartha Institute of Medical Sciences, Andhra Pradesh, has found that 60 per cent of suicide victims are aged between 21 and 30 years. The doctors studied 588 cases of suicide between January 2000 and December 2003. They found that most of the victims were mentally sound, married and from rural areas. Nearly half of them were poor and many illiterate — the reason only five per cent victims left suicide notes.

“Suicides account for more than a million deaths annually. The purpose of our study was to identify the risk group,” said Dr Sachidananda Mohanty who led the study. “We found a suicide rate of 11.76 per 100,000.” Dr Mohanty is an associate professor at the department of forensic medicine and toxicology at MKCG Medical College.

The study, which will soon be published in the Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, found that gender did not have an influence on suicide rates but the weather did. Forty-three per cent of suicides occur during the monsoons. The researchers also found that the noose or poison was most favoured by suicide victims.

“Poverty is the main cause of suicide in India,” Dr Mohanty told KnowHow. “There are other factors like marital disharmony, failure and so on, but poverty is the main issue.”

According to the study, 37 per cent of suicide cases are due to money problems while 35 per cent arise from marital disharmony.

A million people committed suicide around the world in 2000, which means a death every 40 seconds. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental disorders — particularly depression and substance abuse — are associated with more than 90 per cent of cases of suicide. A person is more at risk during times of monetary or emotional crisis.

The Vellore study found that family conflicts, domestic violence, academic failure, unfulfilled romantic ideals and mental illness were some of the factors that contribute to adolescent suicide.

“The easy availability of pesticides in rural homes makes poisoning the preferred method. Restricted access to treatment results in high rates of mortality,” believes Dr Bose.

It is time the authorities recognised the magnitude of the problem and took proper initiatives, feels Dr Siladitya Ray, consultant psychiatrist at the Ruby General Hospital, Calcutta. “An important step to prevent suicide is organising various public health awareness campaigns. That apart, measures should be taken to convince common people that mental disorders should be treated early. Round-the-clock psychiatric and counselling services should also be made available,” suggested Dr Roy.

A suggestion that the WHO seconds.