Citation

Kok JK, Schalkwyk GJ, Chan AHW. Int. J. Sch. Educ. Psychol. 2015; 3(1): 55-63.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/21683603.2014.920285

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The suicide rate among youths in Malaysia has increased over the years, giving rise to considerable public concern. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe potential stressors of suicide and suicide prevention strategies as perceived by youths in Malaysia aged 15-25 years. A qualitative approach was adopted and 625 students from different states of peninsular Malaysia, including East Malaysia, responded to two open-ended sentence completion questions on a survey. This paper reports on the thematic analysis of the two open-ended questions that yielded textual data. The findings showed that relationship problems, family problems, academic issues, and emotional problems were the top four perceived stressors for suicidality. Some protective factors were also elicited, which could provide insights for the development of prevention strategies of suicide. Some of the perceived stressors and strategies were related to cultural issues and are discussed against the backdrop of the Malaysian context.

Language: en