I'm looking to make a correlation between negative social stigma in Saudi Arabia and suicide in young adult males, particularly those who find difficulties in finding a job, lack the money for a dowry/wife and how it creates negative associations on the family.
Dear Lisa,
I participated to a study exploring suicide ideation and behaviours in young adults. We are publishing the first paper on suicide rates and I know that we have data about Saudi Arabian university students. You can ask to Prof. Mehmet Eskin for further informations.
Best regards,
Francesca
Hi! Lisa,
It looks like that you are doing individual-level analyses. However, you may want to introduce Saudi Arabia’s national suicide statistics for your readers. Probably, you may want to compare Saudi Arabia with other countries or with other Muslim countries. The suicide rate in North Africa and the Middle East is quite lower than other regions in the world. Two primary explanations exist. One of them is that a strong Islamic religion penetrates everyday life on the people in that region and Islamism’s strong condemnation of suicide. The other explanation is the underreporting of suicide because of social stigma associated with suicide. In other words, a person reports his family member’s suicide as something else (e.g., an accident)
Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database at World Health Organization’s (WHO) website (who.int) contains the information on the causes of death about 200 countries, including Saudi Arabia. Suicide is classified as a death by “self-inflicted injury.” I know that GBD has suicide data for broad age groups such as 0-14, 15-59, and 60 or older. However, I do not know if the WHO has the information on suicide for more detailed age groups such as 20s, and 30s.
You can search WHO website for the information. Their website also contains research papers on suicide, and I spotted one which is related to suicide in the Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia.
Good luck!
Don
Thank you! Yes, Islam indeed has a strong correlation to the low rates in predominantly Muslim countries. I'm interested in possibly seeing a "spike" in these rates, especially since the oil boom in Saudi Arabia. I noticed the presence of such a wide gap between the rich and the poor and believe that is the cause for alot of social burdens. It's interesting to see how many Saudi hospitals "cover up" the cause of death when it was clearly suicide.
I am currently working on such research studying the suicidal incidences as per cases presenting to Forensic & toxicology departments in eastern region of Saudi Arabia, & yes strong correlation existed between religion and low incidence of suicide among Saudi nationals, but you can not ignore covering up by family members for real suicide cases that in my opinion I consider them under estimated due to poor or non reporting of cases. As you know the rates of suicide vary greatly between countries, with the greatest burdens in developing countries. Trends of suicide fluctuate widely based on time, region, age group, sex, and race. In spite of diverse trends of increases or decreases in suicide rates around the world, suicide is still considered as an important public-health problem.
Best of luck
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