Relationship between Family Cohesion, Stress, and Suicidal Ideation among Undergraduates in Public Universities in Delta Central Senatorial District

The present study focused on the relationship between family cohesion, stress, and suicidal ideation among undergraduates of public universities in Delta Central senatorial district. This study was guided by three research questions and three hypotheses. The design is ex post facto. The 378-observation sample was drawn from a 42,286 undergraduate study population from 3 public universities. This study uses the instrument ‘Family Cohesion, Stress and Suicidal Ideation Scale (FCSSI)’, which was validated based on factor analysis using experts’ judgment. The content validity and construct validity of the instrument were based on factor analysis. Cronbach's Alpha value for the instrument was greater than 0.70 and was used to measure the reliability of the instrument. In order to answer the research questions, the data were analysed using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, and to test the hypothesis at 0.05 significance level, regression statistics were used. This study found that family cohesion, stress, and suicidal ideation among undergraduates have a significant relationship. Furthermore, sex moderates the relationship between family cohesion, stress, and suicidal ideation among undergraduates. Based on these findings, it was recommended that the guidance and counselling units in all institutions should be kept active with qualified counsellors to give good mental health counselling to undergraduates who are having either passive or active suicidal ideation.