Comportamento suicida em alunos de graduação em medicina e em outras profissões de saúde

Abstract

Introduction: Physicians, health care professionals and medical and health care professional students are groups at risk for suicide and suicidal behavior. Suicidal behaviors encompass phenomena ranging from thoughts, planning, attempts and finally death by suicide. Little is known about suicidal behavior among Brazilian health care professional and medical students.Objective: To assess the prevalence of suicidal behavior (thoughts, planning and attempts) among undergraduate students of health care professional and medical courses. Evaluate the socio-demographic, aspects of student life and health factors most associated with suicidal behavior. Method: Medical and health care professional students voluntarily and anonymously answered a broad questionnaire, including socio-demographic data, aspects of academic life and suicidal behavior during the years 2017 and 2018. A statistical analysis was performed using the chi-square test, Mann-Whitney test, and multiple logistic regression. Result: 1592 health care professional students, including 722 medical students, answered the questionnaire. Medical students had a prevalence of 196 (27.3%) of suicidal ideation, 64 (8.9%) of suicidal planning, and 26 (3.6%) of suicide attempts. Students from all health care professions had a prevalence of 394 (24.9%) of suicidal ideation, 124 (7.9%) of suicidal planning and 60 (3.8%) of suicide attempt. Conclusion: Medical students and other health care professional students had significative prevalence of suicidal behavior. Factors such as female gender, less frequent contact with the father, having suffered bullying (especially in high school), substance use to improve academic performance, not wanting to work their own activity after graduating, and needing support from the institution were associated with suicidal ideation among health care students. Bullying, presence of mental disorder, seeking mental health care at university, use of sedatives without a prescription, low socioeconomic status, living alone, religion (atheists, agnostics and spiritualists) and religiosity are the factors that, together, best explain the chance of suicidal behavior among medical students.