Suicidal Ideation And Behavior Among Native And Immigrant Mauritians

Aim: To assess the prevalence of Suicidal Ideation and Suicidal Behavior among native Mauritians and immigrant Mauritians living in China and England. And to assess demographic characteristics, depression and negative life events as influencing factors.Method: Three self-report questionnaires were administered to the general population through an online survey. 1. Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire(SBQ)-To evaluate suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior; 2. CES-D-To evaluate the prevalence of depression; 3-ASLEC-To evaluate the prevalence of negative life events. A self-made sociodemographic questionnaire was used as well to record general data. 149 Mauritians(n=149) were registered: 69 native Mauritians, 48 Immigrant Mauritians in China and 32 Immigrant Mauritians from England.Results: The prevalence of Suicidal Ideation in the sample was 35.6%(n%=55/149) and that of Suicidal Behavior was 12.8%(n%=19/149).There was no significant difference in Suicidal Ideation among the 3 groups(χ2 =3.3062, p=0.192) but there was a variation in prevalence of suicidal behavior(χ2 =12.564, p=0.0019). Immigrants living in England showed marked variation when compared to native Mauritians(χ2 =9.961, p=0.0016) and immigrants in China(χ2=6.984, p=0.00822). There was no difference in prevalence of Suicidal Behavior between native Mauritians and those living in China(χ2 =0.0471,p=0.828). 33.5% of the Mauritians were depressive(CES-D score ≥15; n=50). More females(72%; n=36/50) were depressive than males(28%)[p=0.003); χ2=8.754].Depression did play a significant role in the prevalence of Suicidal Ideation(χ2 =13.705,p=0.0002) and Suicidal Behavior(χ2 =8.558, p=0.0034). in the sample population. The three main life events that affected the participants were “Had a fallout with a friend”(By depression: p =0.009; χ2 =6.746), “Lived far from your parents”(By Suicidal Ideation:p=0.019, χ2 =5.543; By Suicidal Behavior: p =0.048, χ2 =3.922) and “Death of a close person”(By gender: p=0.024, χ2=5.086).Conclusion: The prevalence of Suicidal Ideation didn’t differ much among the Mauritians residing in China and England compared to native Mauritians. But there was a marked variation in Suicidal Behavior among Mauritians living in England compared to those living China and Mauritius. Depression and Negative Life Events demonstrated their contribution as predicting factors of suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior among the Mauritians, which is consistent with various studies. Thus, we can conclude that China is a better place for Mauritians to immigrate to compared to England. Nevertheless,other factors, such as depression and negative life events, contributing to suicidal ideation and behavior should be taken into consideration.