A multilevel logistic regression analysis on suicide ideation and associated factors among school going adolescents in Namibia
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Date
2022
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Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
Suicide accounts for many deaths worldwide making it the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. Suicide ideation leads to mental health disorder and has been shown to “spread” suicidal thoughts to others. Consequently, adolescents who reported suicidal ideation at an early age are more likely to later attempt suicide. The objective of the study was to estimate prevalence and risk factors for suicidal ideation among school-going adolescents in Namibia. The
study analyzed secondary data from the Namibia Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS) of 2013 (N= 4 531). A multilevel logistic regression, which allows for the incorporation of group level effects (school and grade) and estimation of interactions, was used to establish risk factors associated with suicidal ideation. 32% of the school-going adolescents indicated they had considered suicide at least once in the previous 12 months. Age (p = 0.025), sex (p = 0.025), dietary behaviour (p = 0.035), violence (p-value < 0.001), mental health (p = 0.002), drug use (p
= 0.008) and tobacco use (p-value < 0.001) were significantly associated with suicide ideation.
Results suggest significant school level effects with a VPC of 0.0454 and grade level effects witha VPC of 0.0231. Due to a small number of grades and schools, the maximum likelihood estimation may have produced unstable estimates and therefore, future researchers may use a Bayesian approach. Future researchers can also make use of multilevel multinomial logistic regression modelling instead of the multilevel binary logistic regression modelling that was used in this study.
Description
A mini-thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Science (Biostatistics)
Keywords
Suicide, School-going adolescents, Mental health