Prevalence of suicidal behavior in young university students: A systematic review with meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: to identify the prevalence of suicidal behavior in young university students. Method: a systematic review with meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies based on the Joanna Briggs Institute proposal, and carried out in the PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO and LILACS databases and in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, with no language or year restrictions. A total of 2,942 publications were identified. Selection, data extraction and methodological evaluation of the studies were performed by two independent researchers. The meta-analysis was performed considering the random effects model. Results: eleven articles were included in this review. The prevalence variation for suicidal ideation was from 9.7% to 58.3% and, for attempted suicide, it was from 0.7% to 14.7%. The meta-analysis showed a 27.1% prevalence for suicidal ideation in life, 14.1% for ideation in the last year, and 3.1% for attempted suicide in life. Conclusion: the high prevalence of suicidal behavior, even with the considerable heterogeneity of the studies, raises the need to implement interventions aimed at preventing suicide and promoting mental health, especially in the academic environment.

Prediction of suicidal ideation among Chinese college students based on radial basis function neural network

“…We found that the prevalence of suicidal ideation ranged from 3.00 to 4.07% among college students of Sichuan University in the last 12 months, which is similar to the prevalence found by Wang (4.21% among freshmen in college in Henan) ( 56 ), and Chen (5.3% among undergraduate students in Jilin) ( 57 ) in China. The reported prevalence rates of suicidal ideation in many other countries were between 9.7 to 58.3% ( 58 ), which were higher than that in our study. This might be related to different cultural contexts and different survey scales.…”

Suicidal behaviors and associated factors among medical students in Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…These high prevalence rates show the growing burden of suicide behaviors among university students. Despite the fact that the large difference with other types of students concerning lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation, past-year suicidal ideation (i.e., 14.5%) was similar to the 14.1% among young university students (Crispim et al, 2021). The lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts among African medical students (5.5%) was higher than the global 2.19% estimate of suicide attempts among medical students (Tsegay et al, 2020) and university students (3.1%) more generally (Crispim et al, 2021).…”

“…The physician-patient ratio in the region is about 0.209 per 1000 individuals (The World Bank 2022). However, the lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation (i.e., 18.7%) was much lower than for university students globally (27.1%) (Crispim et al, 2021). However, It was more than 9.1% among Brazilian undergraduate students (Demenech et al, 2021), and than systematic review and meta-analysis findings from PhD students ranging from 2% to 12% (Satinsky et al, 2021).…”

A cross-lagged study of the associations among problematic smartphone use, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation in chinese university students

“…Two to four times more than the suicide rate of non-college students of the same age, college students are a population at high risk for suicide (Song et al, 2015 ). Among college students, the prevalence of SI ranged from 9.7 to 58.3% (Crispim et al, 2021 ). The rate of suicidal ideations during COVID pandemic is higher than that reported in studies on general population prior to pandemic and may result in higher suicide rates in future (Farooq et al, 2021 ).…”