Madam, suicide is a serious global public health problem among adolescents. There are no nationally
representative, population based surveys on suicide-expression among school attending adolescents in
Pakistan. A recent study based on 90 countries reported a suicide rate of 7.4/100,000 adolescents aged
15-19 years old.1
Suicide-expression has been reported to be associated with poverty, having been
bullied, poor mental health, poor parental monitoring and involvement, and tobacco use.1-4
To describe these factors association with self-reported suicide-expression in the past 12-months in
Pakistani students of class 8-10 and its prevalence; I used data from the two-stage cluster sample-based
nationally representative Global School-Based Health Survey (GSHS) for Pakistan, conducted by the
Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization and Centers of Disease Control
and Prevention, United States, in 2009.5
Design-based analysis using STATA-12 was done using
bivariate analysis and multinomial logistic regression; factors found statistically significant at p<0.05
level on Chi-square test were used for multinomial logistic regression. Responses to GSHS question
"During the past 12 months, did you ever seriously consider attempting suicide?", and "During the past
12 months, did you make a plan about how you would attempt suicide?" were used to determine
suicide-expression. Suicide-expression was defined as either having 'suicide-ideation' or 'suicideplanning'
in the past 12 months.
The overall prevalence of suicide-ideation alone was 3.3% [95% confidence interval (CI): 2.6%, 4.0%]
(n = 5095), while prevalence of suicide-planning (with or without suicide-ideation) was 7.6% (95% CI:
6.4%, 8.8%).