Attitude Towards Suicide and Help-Seeking Behavior Among Medical Undergraduates in a Malaysian University

Wahab, Suzaily; Shah, Nicholas Elam; Sivachandran, Sarmeswaran; Shahruddin, Izzati; Ismail, Nik Nor Shaida; Mohan, Loushinnah Devi; Kamaluddin, Mohammad Rahim; Nawi, Azmawati Mohammed

doi:10.1007/s40596-021-01513-z

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…Faculty members should be trained to recognize red flags in students who exhibit signs of being cyberbullied. [19][20][21]…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…IeJSME 2023 17 (2): [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] To date, there has been limited data on cyberbullying among Malaysian medical students, with only one such study in a public medical university of Malaysia showing a high prevalence of 24.4% cyberbullying over the past six months. 5 The prevalence of mild depression among cyberbullied victims was 34.0%.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prevalence of cyberbullying and its effects on studies, personal life and mental health of medical students in a private medical university in Malaysia

Sean Kang

2023

IeJSME

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Introduction:Cyberbullying is the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group to harm others. Cyberbullying may negatively affect the studies, personal lives and mental health of victims who are students. We report on the prevalence of cyberbullying and its effects on personal lives, studies, and mental health among medical students.Methods: A self-administered online questionnaire was used to collect demographic data, determine the prevalence of cyberbullying, and its effects on personal lives, studies and mental health of medical students. Student-t test was used for comparison of means, and logistic analysis was used to identify predictors of being cyberbullied.Results: 40 out of 261 study participants reported being cyberbullied in the preceding 6 months (prevalence: 15.3%). Cyberbullying did not negatively affect the studies and personal lives of victims. Most victims reported none or minimalto-mild depression. Malay ethnicity was a predictor of being cyberbullied. Female students were 5-times more likely to be cyberbullied because of their lifestyle compared to males. Conclusion:The prevalence of cyberbullying among medical students in this study was relatively low compared to reports from other universities. Cyberbullying had little to no effect on the studies, personal life, and mental health of medical students in our study. Malay ethnicity was a significant predictor to being cyberbullied. Females were more likely to be cyberbullied for their lifestyle. Support systems, awareness of good internet etiquette, and promotion of early help-seeking behaviour, especially targeted at identified vulnerable groups, should be put in place to check the practice of cyberbullying.

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“…Faculty members should be trained to recognize red flags in students who exhibit signs of being cyberbullied. [19][20][21]…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of cyberbullying and its effects on studies, personal life and mental health of medical students in a private medical university in Malaysia

Sean Kang

2023

IeJSME

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“…In addition, Malaysian students population are an at-risk population for suicidal behavior ( 10 ). More studies on the suicide rate in other countries have found a higher suicide rate among healthcare workers and healthcare students compared to other professions ( 12 , 19 – 22 ) due to multiple factors. This has also been reflected in a Malaysian study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Being school leavers put them at high risk of suicide ( 6 – 10 ) and it has also been reported that they are the group with the highest risk to have mental health problems ( 11 ). Furthermore, these students, especially Malaysian healthcare students ( 12 ) are less likely to seek professional help when depressed ( 13 – 15 ) or having suicidal thoughts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of online advanced C.A.R.E suicide prevention gatekeeper training program among healthcare lecturers and workers in national university of Malaysia: A pilot study

Roslan

Pheh²,

Mahadevan³

et al. 2023

Front. Psychiatry

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BackgroundSuicide is a major cause of death among adolescents and young adults, especially students. This is particularly true for healthcare students with a higher risk and more access to lethal means. Thus, it is vital for healthcare educators who have regular contact with these healthcare students to be trained as gatekeepers in preventing suicide. Evidence of the effectiveness of such gatekeeper training, mainly using an online module, is lacking predominantly in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of an online gatekeeper suicide prevention training program that is conducted for healthcare lecturers.MethodsA single-arm interventional pre-and post-pilot study was conducted on a sample of healthcare lecturers and workers who are involved in supervising healthcare students. A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit 50 healthcare educators in Malaysia. The program was conducted by trained facilitators and 31 participants completed a locally validated self-rated questionnaire to measure their self-efficacy and declarative knowledge in preventing suicide; immediately before and after the intervention.ResultsSignificant improvement was seen in the overall outcome following the intervention, mostly in the self-efficacy domain. No significant improvement was seen in the domain of declarative knowledge possibly due to ceiling effects; an already high baseline knowledge about suicide among healthcare workers. This is an exception in a single item that assesses a common misperception in assessing suicide risk where significant improvement was seen following the program.ConclusionThe online Advanced C.A.R.E. Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training Program is promising in the short-term overall improvement in suicide prevention, primarily in self-efficacy.

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“…Students are the vulnerable group for the study of help-seeking due to their high prevalence of anxiety. Several studies suggested there is a need to focus on reducing the stigma surrounding suicide to influence help-seeking attitudes among the students at risk 20 , 21 . In addition, help-seeking behavior (HSB) toward anxiety and its associated factors are pivotal in designing effective community-based mental health interventions 9 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Help-seeking behaviour towards anxiety among undergraduate students of Nepal: a web-based cross-sectional study

Aryal,

Rajbanshi,

Pokhrel

et al. 2023

Annals of Medicine &Amp; Surgery

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Background: Stigma among mental disorders like anxiety has been identified as an important barrier in help-seeking by national policymakers. Anxiety disorders are quite common among college students, and their severity and prevalence are growing. This study aimed to assess help-seeking behaviour toward anxiety among undergraduate students of Kathmandu University. Methodology: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 422 undergraduate students. General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ) tool was used to assess help-seeking behaviour. Frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation were calculated to assess the characteristics of the participants. Factors associated with help-seeking behaviour were examined using Chi-square tests. Pearson correlation was determined to find out the association between professional and informal sources for seeking help. All the tests were carried out at the statistically significant level at a P-value of 0.05. Results: The mean (±SD) age was 20.3±1.1 years in this study. This study demonstrated that 36.5% and 17.5% of the participants were extremely likely to seek help from parents and psychiatrists towards anxiety respectively. Gender (OR=1.5, 95% CI: 1.0-1.3) was significantly associated with parents, education was significantly associated with parents (OR=0.4, 95% CI:0.2-0.6), and friends (OR= 0.5, 95% CI: 0.3-0.9), meanwhile, ethnicity (OR=0.6, 95% CI: 0.4-0.9) and residence (OR=0.5, 95% CI: 0.3-0.8) were significantly associated with psychiatrists and psychologists for help-seeking behavior respectively. Fear of criticism (34.1%) and stigma (20.3%) were the main reasons for not seeking help among the participants. The maximum number of participants (41.5%) preferred to seek help immediately if they ever experienced anxiety. This study showed professional and informal sources were positively correlated with anxiety (rpi=0.3) at a P-value <0.05. Conclusion: This study showed that students preferred to seek help from informal sources rather than professional sources. In addition, there is still stigma and fear among students regarding mental health. This study suggests that there is a need to have psychosocial intervention at colleges and educational institutions in order to promote professional help-seeking for any mental disorders including anxiety.

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Attitude Towards Suicide and Help-Seeking Behavior Among Medical Undergraduates in a Malaysian University

Cited by 7 publications

References 31 publications

Prevalence of cyberbullying and its effects on studies, personal life and mental health of medical students in a private medical university in Malaysia

Prevalence of cyberbullying and its effects on studies, personal life and mental health of medical students in a private medical university in Malaysia

Effectiveness of online advanced C.A.R.E suicide prevention gatekeeper training program among healthcare lecturers and workers in national university of Malaysia: A pilot study

Help-seeking behaviour towards anxiety among undergraduate students of Nepal: a web-based cross-sectional study

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