Methods and Consequences of Suicide Attempts among Australian Students

Schweitzer et al. previously published a paper in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry which provided prevalence rates on suicidal ideation and behaviour among university students [1]. We wish to provide an update on extensions of our previously published work.

In our previous publication we indicated the relatively high percentage of students who reported suicide-related behaviour over the past 12 months (6.6%). This figure is very similar to a more recent study undertaken in the UK where 6% of student respondents reported suicide attempts [2]. As a follow up, we investigated this finding further in studies undertaken in 1994 and 1997 by asking fresh samples of University of Queensland first-year undergraduates who responded positively to the question ‘I have made attempts to kill myself’ (in the past year), to provide additional data relating to the methods employed in their suicide attempts and the consequences following their suicide attempt in terms of level of injury and medical care received.

One reason for requesting further information in relation to suicidal behaviour was to diminish the possibility for false positives. In addition we were interested to gain further details on the results of the behaviour.

In an overall sample of 1385 tertiary students, 88 (6.4%) students responded positively to the question regarding whether they had made one or more attempts to kill themselves during the previous 12 months. Our findings with regard to methods employed were as follows in Table 1.

Table 1.

Methods employed

	1994 study (n = 731)∗			1997 study (n = 654)∗			1994 and 1997 total
	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	Total
Ingestation	5	13	18	5	11	16	34
Cutting	4	8	12	4	8	12	24
Hanging	0	3	3	1	2	3	6
Firearms	2	1	3	1	0	1	4
Height	0	2	2	2	0	2	4
Motor accident	0	3	3	1	1	2	5
Other or unspecified	0	2	2	3	6	9	11
Total	11	32	43	17	28	45	88

∗

First year university students

We also collected self-report data on the medical consequences of their attempts. Our findings are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Consequences following suicide attempts in terms of level of injury and medical care received

	1994 study (n = 731)∗			1997 study (n = 654)∗			1994 and 1997 total
	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	Total
No illness/injury	1	12	13	5	13	18	31
Minor injury/no medical intervention	2	16	18	6	6	12	30
Medical intervention	6	4	10	0	4	4	14
Hospitalisation	2	1	3	1	3	4	7
Total requiring medical intervention	8	5	13	1	7	8	21
Overall total†	11	33	44	12	26	38	82

∗

First year university students.

†

6 invalid responses.

Our findings confirmed our initial findings in which we reported that 6.6% of students self-reported suicide attempts over the past year. In the current 1994 and 1997 samples, 6.4% of respondents again reported one or more suicide attempts over the past 12 months.

The current data extend the previous findings, first by validating the authenticity of these self-reported suicide attempts by documenting the methods used and second, by reporting on the medical care associated with reported suicide attempts.

Our data suggest that the predominant methods are ingestion and cutting. Interestingly, our data does not show sex differences in the relative preference of method. The factors predisposing to these methods may well differ and need to be investigated further.

The majority of students who reported an attempt indicated that no medical intervention was required with a small per cent requiring medical intervention and/or hospitalisation, that is, 1.5% of the total sample required medical intervention following a suicide attempt over the previous 12 months. These findings have a significant impact for university counselling and health services, particularly if one extrapolates these figures to the broader university population.

The previously published findings appear to be robust in terms of suicidal ideation and behaviour among university students in Australia even when students are asked for more detailed information regarding the characteristics of their attempts.