Suicide and Attempted suicides are increasing in trend globally. A high
Suicide rate in any society is an index of social
disorganization. This remained as a main concern of mental health experts and sociologists which made them to think what makes the people life so miserable, to end their lives by themselves.
To make the situation more complex World Health Report 2001 estimates that, 10-20 million people make an attempt to commit
suicide and 1 million people become successful in it. The comparable period prevalence rate for suicide throughout the world ranges from 5- 30/lakh populations per year. One million people committed suicide in the year 2000 worldwide. Hence, like other non communicable diseases, suicide is increasing in trend throughout the world and is a major public health problem2
. Suicide is one of the ten major causes of deaths in India. India ranks second in number of suicidal deaths. According to National Crime Records Bureau (2001) there were 108,506 deaths due to suicide, with an incidence rate of 11/1, 00,000 during the year 2000. In 1974 the number of suicide cases was 46,008 which have now tripled in the past three decades which reflects the seriousness of the problem.
Suicide is a result of complex interaction between biological, psychological, social and situational
factors. Similarly attempted suicide is stated to be associated with several psychosocial and medical conditions viz. Young age of 15 to 24 years, female sex, poor education, unemployment, living alone and history of socioeconomic deprivation are stated to be potential risk factors. However studies have failed to reveal consistent findings with regard to the prevalence and potency of these risk factors in different regions. At times suicide appears to be a very private affair with problems or burdens not shared even with the closest people of the attempter. So there is need to identify such factors associated with the suicidal attempt.