Abstract:
Suicide ideation among undergraduate students all over the world has assumed an alarming dimension. It has become so worrisome that it has gained prominence in social discourse. The prevalence rate of suicide among undergraduate students in different parts of the world gives room for concern. Despite these researches, factors that predict the occurrence adequately investigated in this part of the world. This study therefore investigates psychological factors as correlates of suicidal ideation among university students in Lagos state. A descriptive survey research design was adopted in the study. Two hundred and fifty participants were selected through simple random sampling from five faculties within the University of Lagos. Their ages ranged between 19 and 24 years with mean of 22.40 years (SD= 4.19). Two structured questionnaire; Hopelessness Scale (?=0.87) and Perceived Stress Scale (?=0.86) were used to collect data. The findings revealed that there was significant positive relationships between perceived stress (r = 0.338**, p < 0.05), hopelessness (r = 0.285, p > 0.05) and suicide ideation among the participants. The two variables jointly accounted for 61.1% variance in predicting suicide ideation among the participants. The independent variables made positive relative contribution to suicide ideation in the following order: Perceived stress contributed most to the prediction of suicide ideation among undergraduate students in University of Ibadan (? = 0.345, t = 50.077, p < 0.05) hopelessness (? = -0.020, t = -.308; p < 0.05) had relative contribution to suicide ideation. Based on this finding, it is recommended that students should be exposed to stress management and hope boosting training as a strategy for curbing suicide ideation. Positive academic environment should also be encouraged.
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