PERCEIVED CAUSES OF SUICIDAL IDEATION AMONG STUDENTS IN KWARA STATE UNIVERSITY, MALETE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The rate that students commit suicide/attempting suicide in tertiary institution of learning in the world today as well as Nigeria is increasing and this has been a thing of concern to stakeholders in education. Based on this, the study examines the perceived causes of suicidal ideation among students in Kwara State University, Malete Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study.  All the undergraduate students in Kwara State University, Malete were the population for the study. The respondents in the study were 180 students studying in Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria, they were randomly selected. drafted questionnaire was given to lectures in the college of Education, the instruments used was a two likert scaled questionnaire titled “students perceived causes of suicidal ideation questionnaire” which was validated by lecturers of the college, and reliably tested at (r=0.71).  One research question was generated; one hypothesis was raised and tested at 0.05levels of significance. Data gathered were analysed using frequency count, percentage, mean, and T-test. The results of the study revealed that students perceived that low academic performance, depression and misused of drug were the major causes of suicidal ideation. It was also shown that there was no significant difference on causes of suicidal ideation among male and female respondents (t_cal= 0.91, P>0.05). Based on the finding, the study recommended that school management should organized counseling class for students regularly at different college/faculty especially for those with low academic performance.