2nd World Congress on
Mental Health

Biography:

Kalayu  Mebrahtu  Kiros  has completed his msc in integrated clinical and community mental health on July 08, 2019 at Mekelle University, Collage of health science at age of 24. Currently he is lecturer at Mekelle University.He has published 1 paper in reputed journal and other 2 papers pending on pear review process for publication.
 

 

Abstract:

Mental distress is one of the main health problems of students among college students compared to the general population. Mental distress can be difficult for the person, family and colleagues .So, the researcher strongly believed that this study would be highly valuable, timely and important in various aspects. Since suicidal ideation occur among variety of people (young and old, rich and poor, educated or less educated), it can be very difficult to pin point a typical suicidal ideation profile among college students. The effective prediction of suicidal death remains to be a problematic issue, and it has been a taboo topic all over the world. Suicide is a serious and growing public health problem, and it remains a serious cause of death in the world; therefore, it is essential to increase our knowledge concerning the etiology of suicide among undergraduate students.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of mental distress and suicidal ideation among undergraduate students Mekelle University, Ethiopia. An institution based cross-sectional study design was used. This research was undertaken from February-June, 2017 (N=406). We used a systematic random sampling technique to select participants. Using SRQ 20 self-administered questionnaire. Data entry, cleaning and analysis was done by epi.INFO and SPSS (V.20). The overall prevalence of mental distress was 29.10% (n = 118), 27.10% (n = 58) in male, and 31.25% (n = 60) in female

students. The prevalence of mental distress was the highest among the fi rst and fourth year students, 35.4% and 49.4% respectively. Both college of health science and college of veterinary medicine have the same prevalence 33.30% of mental distress. The prevalence of suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt one month before the study was 17% (n = 69) and 0.70% (n = 3), respectively. we conclude that about one tenth (29.1%) and one sixth (17%) of the university students had mental distress and had suicidal ideation respectively. All students who have mental illness have mental distress and students who have history of death in their families, substance user, suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt has highly prevalence of mental distress. Preventive measures should be taken for significantly associated factor of mental distress (suicide ideation, economical support, history of mental illness and substance use) is important.