Suicidal Behaviour Among Nigerian Undergraduates: Associations with Gambling Disorder and Emotional Dysregulation

Abstract

Background: There is a high prevalence of suicidal behavior among Nigerian youths. However, the connections between suicidal behavior and precipitating factors, such as gambling disorder and emotional dysregulation (ED) in this population, are not well researched. Objectives: The present study examined the associations between gambling disorder, ED, and suicidal behavior in Nigerian university undergraduate students. Methods: This study was carried out during October 2020 - April 2021 on 1338 undergraduates with a mean ± SD age of 19.84 ± 3.22 years selected using random and purposive sampling for the universities and participants respectively. Participants responded to the Attitudes Towards Gambling Scale, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and Redeemer's University Suicidality Scale. Descriptive statistics (simple percentages) and inferential statistics (Pearson’s correlation and regression analysis) were used for data analysis. Results: The Pearson's correlation revealed that suicidal behaviour had significant positive correlations with the nonacceptance of emotional responses or distress (r = 0.22, P = 0), difficulties engaging in goal-directed behaviours (r = 0.21, P = 0), difficulties in impulse control (r = 0.27, P = 0), the lack of emotional awareness (r = 0.14, P = 0), limited access to emotional regulation strategies (r = 0.33, P = 0), the lack of emotional clarity (r = 0.32, P = 0), and difficulties in emotional regulation (r = 0.4, P = 0). Problematic gambling (PG) independently predicted suicidal behavior, while PG and ED dimensions jointly predicted suicidal behavior. The ED dimensions contributed 15% incrementally to the prediction of suicidal behavior and beyond the 2% variance accounted for PG in undergraduates. Conclusions: Our results showed positive links between PG, ED, and suicidal behavior among Nigerian undergraduates. It suggests that the combination of PG and ED increases the severity of suicidal behavior among students.

A moderated mediation analysis of the quality of life, gambling craving, escape expectancies and gambling disorder relationships.

“…Available systematic review of national surveys from 2000-2015 (Yu et al, 2023;Choliz and Choliz, 2016) found wide variations in GD rates for different countries; worldwide ranged from 0.12-5.8%, 0.12-3.4% in Europe. In Nigeria, evidences show that 1 in every 5 male and 1 in every 12 female youths have high to severe GD rating leading to elevated burden of mental harm (e,g., anxiety, stress, depression and in some instances suicidal deaths) (Akpunne et al, 2022). This report underscores the need to understand the underlying factors that drive GD including the environment (quality of life), person (escape outcome expectancies and craving) in order to optimize its prevention, treatment and policy.…”