Suicide, stressful life events and mental disorders: a population-based study from Telangana, India

BACKGROUND: Studies have revealed a higher prevalence of mental disorders among suicide attempt survivors than the general population. Stressful life events have been reported to be involved in both poor mental health and suicide attempts. The present study aimed to evaluate lifetime/distal and past-1-year/proximal stressful life events (SLEs) as risk factors for depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and somatoform disorders among suicide-attempt survivors.METHODS: A total of 129 suicide attempt survivors (cases) and an equal number of (age, sex, caste, and residence matched) controls were recruited from villages around Warangal City, Telangana, India (N.=258). From each participant, data pertaining to socio-demographic variables, selected mental disorders, and presumptive stressful life events (lifetime and past-1-year) were collected using standardized tools.RESULTS: The median Presumptive Stressful Life Event Scale-lifetime (PSLES-lifetime) Score of cases was significantly higher than that of controls, whereas median PSLES-1-year scores were similar for both groups. Further, barring a few exceptions, PSLES-lifetime and PSLES-1-year scores were positively associated with studied mental disorders, implying an increase in the burden of mental disorders with an increase in PSLES scores among both cases and controls. Cumulatively, these observations suggest a higher burden of mental disorders among cases than controls, with PSLES-lifetime scores being the determining factor.CONCLUSIONS: Distal SLEs, possibly due to unhealthy emotion regulation, may have a more prominent role than proximal ones in the causation of poor mental health among suicide attempt survivors.