Suicidal behaviors among Moroccan school students: prevalence and association with socio-demographic characteristics and psychoactive substances use: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

BackgroundSuicidal behavior is a major cause of injury and death worldwide, especially among adolescents and young adults. Few studies have tackled this issue in the Arab world. The present study investigated the prevalence and the risk factors of suicidal behaviors among Moroccan school students.MethodsFrom April 2012 to November 2013, a cross-sectional study was conducted in the North-Centre region of Morocco among students in public secondary schools selected using stratified cluster random sampling. The data were collected via anonymous self-administered questionnaires. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used in its Moroccan Colloquial Arabic version to assess suicidality according to the DSM-IV criteria.ResultsA total of 3020 students (53 % boys) aged 11–23 years (average age = 16 ± 2.1 years) were included in the study. The prevalence of suicide ideation, suicide planning and suicide attempts during the last month were 15.7, 6.3, and 6.5 % respectively.Univariate analyses demonstrated that suicidal behaviors followed different epidemiological patterns. According to the multivariate analyses, the risk factors for all suicidal behaviors among Moroccan school students were the female gender, middle school level, urban locations, low family income, parents’ divorce, tobacco consumption and psychoactive substances (alcohol and cannabis) use.ConclusionsThe intervention of preventive programs has become an emergency to overcome the issue of suicidality in Morocco. Further researches on adolescents’ suicidal behaviors are suggested to update temporal data and assess the effectiveness of potential interventions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-015-0680-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Study of Some Psychoactive Drugs and Their Role in Increasing the Risk of Suicide

“…Suicide is defined as death due to an act committed on one's own body with the intention of committing suicide, while suicide attempt is defined as * email: oana_suciu96@yahoo.com, laviniahogea@yahoo.com; vlader2000@yahoo.com non-fatal outcome, for which there is evidence, either implicit or explicit, that the person intended to commit suicide. These definitions suggest that suicidal behavior involves a self-imposed act, carried out with the intention of dying [11,12].…”

Suicidal ideation and planning among Palestinian middle school students living in Gaza Strip, West Bank, and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) camps

“…A study in Lebanon found that about 16% of students aged 11–16 years reported suicidal ideation [21]. A study in Morocco found that 12.8% of 11- to 14-year-old students had suicidal thinking and 6.5% reported suicidal planning [22]. Previous studies of adolescents in the region suggested that suicidal thinking is associated with poor mental health, substance use, victimization, and lack of parental attachment [21], [23], but this association has not been previously examined among early adolescents in the OPT.…”

Characteristics of patients attending the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinic in Erbil city

“…On the other hand, we noticed that patients who disclosed their suicidal ideations were less than 1%. This percentage is very low compared to what other studies have reported from Palestine, Lebanon and Morocco[45–47] and considering that suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents generally according to Anderson et al[48]. This low number is probably due to inadequate information and awareness of the families about suicide among children and adolescents, and the fact that adolescent suicidal behavior is a neglected public health issue, especially in developing countries.…”