A Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Kafayat Ogunsola, has said mental disorder accounts for 90 per cent of suicide cases in the country.
Ogunsola, who works at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, spoke on the sidelines of the 2019 World Suicide Prevention Day.
She said: “Ninety per cent of cases of suicide occur as a result of mental disorder; it is as a result of depression. There are some personalities in certain individuals; things happen to us from time to time and our ability to cope or deal with it is one of the reasons or determine who is able to overcome. We need to understand why people are committing suicide.
“We need to understand the gender that commits it more, and what were the reasons, relationship, mental disorder and that is what we have been able to analyse in our research…’’ Ogunsola said.
The psychiatrist said people were going through some adversity.
She said: “It is not the end of the world for them, but if people are equipped with the right idea, they will overcome.
“This is because mental disorder is a factor in our environment, people tend to stigmatise patients by defining it in mysterious ways.’’
Ogunsola said besides mental disorder, break ups, hardship, unemployment and financial issues were reasons people commit suicide.
She said Suicide Research and Prevention Initiative (SURPIN), an initiative of LUTH, was established due to increasing suicide.
The expert stated that SURPIN had identified some reasons why people commit suicide, which gender do it more, and the problems that make people commit suicide.
She, therefore, advised that whatever challenges humans face in life, suicide should not be an option.
Ogunsola said SURPIN would embark on more research, training, funding through grants, skill acquisition, among others, to curb suicide.
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