Suicidality in Bangladeshi Young Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Behavioral Factors, COVID-19 Risk and Fear, and Mental Health Problems

Abstract

Background It is said that psychological stressors have risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may contribute to suicidality. A few studies were conducted investigating suicidality amid the first wave of the pandemic in Bangladesh, but none of these studies explored the predictive role of the suicidality-related factors (eg, behavior and health-related variables, COVID-19 risk, fear of COVID-19). Thus, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of suicidality and the predictive models explaining suicidality variance among Bangladeshi young adults during the second wave of the pandemic. Methods An online-based cross-sectional survey was conducted during the second wave of the pandemic (between 1 and 13 April 2021; a year after the pandemic's inception in the country). The survey questionnaire collected information on socio-demographics, behavior and health-related variables, COVID-19 risk, fear of COVID-19, depression, anxiety, and suicidality. A total of 756 data were analyzed (male 59%; mean age 22.24 ±4.39 years), and hierarchical regression was performed considering suicidality as the dependent variable. A p -value <0.05 was set to be statistically significant with a 95% of confidence interval. Results About 8.2% reported having at least suicidal thoughts within the pandemic inception to survey time (one-year suicidal ideation). More specifically, 7.40% had only suicidal ideation, whereas 0.10% planned for suicide, 0.70% attempted suicide. None of the socio-demographic variables was significantly associated with suicidality. Taking drugs, performing less physical activity, poor self-reporting health condition, being comorbid, being at higher COVID-19 risk, having fear of COVID-19 infection, and suffering from depression and anxiety were significantly associated with a higher risk of suicidality. However, the final model including all of the studied variables explained a 17.1% (F=8.245, p <0.001) variance in terms of suicidality. Conclusion Although this study reported a lower severity of suicidality than prior Bangladeshi studies conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, a portion of people are still at risk of suicide and they should be given attention.

Prevalence and factors associated with mental health problems in Saudi general population during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…This increased prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in females could be because they correspond to a greater percentage in different sectors of workers and employees that could be impacted negatively due to the COVID-19 pandemic; for example, in health-care industries or as in retail sectors. Besides, females prevalently suffer from mental health problems, which has also been reported in the systematic review of studies during the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, reported from Bangladesh (al Mamun et al, 2021) and China, Spain, Italy, Iran, USA, Turkey, Nepal, and Denmark (Xiong et al, 2020).…”

“…Due to the fear of COVID-19 contamination, the pandemic has significantly changed daily lives because of restricted movements to slow down the virus spread. Along with this, people are experiencing new realities such as working from home, attending online schooling, lack of face-to-face contact with friends and family members, and rising unemployment, which are the probable factors of mental illness (al Mamun et al, 2021;Hosen et al, 2021). Furthermore, compared to the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms before the pandemic, significantly higher levels of their rates have been observed across the world (Hosen et al, 2021).…”

“…Psychological symptoms during the time of pandemic were common when the participants were in younger age groups (Xiong et al, 2020). Major populations under the age of 30 years, mostly students, were also prone to emotional distress caused by examination postponements, school closures, poor study efficiency with remote online courses, and mostly by canceling any social events (al Mamun et al, 2021). The aforementioned issues faced by the students are also being accused of being suicidal stressors at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic (Manzar et al, 2021), where general people are committing suicide due to economic problems (Mamun, 2021).…”

“…As per the World Health Organization (2018), "mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community." The common mental health problems include depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and schizophrenia, which increases the risk of suicidality (Mamun et al, 2021). However, despite the impact of COVID-19 on community people's mental health, the majority of the professional attention and research has focused on treating the virus's physiological consequences.…”

Perceived e-learning stress as an independent predictor of e-learning readiness: Results from a nationwide survey in Bangladesh

“…After more than a year since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, it has now spread to nearly 200 countries around the globe with a staggering number of 120 million confirmed cases and 2.6 million deaths [ 1 , 2 ]. It has brought the world to its knees, imposing lockdowns, closure of academic institutions, inciting adverse psychological impacts, adopting the e-learning education system and work from home policy [ 3 – 5 ]. The world is relentlessly searching for new strategies to cope with the ‘new normal’ and resume daily work and business.…”