The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on November 21 announced a National Suicide Prevention Strategy.
Key points
- It is the first of its kind in the country, with time-bound action plans and multi-sectoral collaborations to achieve reduction in suicide mortality by 10% by 2030.
- It broadly seeks to establish effective surveillance mechanisms for suicide within the next three years.
- It seeks to establish psychiatric outpatient departments that will provide suicide prevention services through the District Mental Health Programme in all districts within the next five years.
- It also aims to integrate a mental well-being curriculum in all educational institutions within the next eight years.
- It envisages developing guidelines for responsible media reporting of suicides, and restricting access to means of suicide.
- The strategy should now be passed on to the States for them to develop locally relevant action plans; and then cascade to the district, primary health and community levels.
Key data
- In India, more than one lakh lives are lost every year to suicide, and it is the top killer in the 15-29 years category.
- In the past three years, the suicide rate has increased from 10.2 to 11.3 per 1,00,000 population, the document records.
- The most common reasons for suicide include family problems and illnesses, which account for 34% and 18% of all suicide-related deaths.
