Factors contributing suicide in India

Abstract

Purpose

The death of a person caused by suicide is a matter of grave concern in contemporary society. Today, a number of people in society are taking their own lives because of many reasons. This study aims to examine the causes of suicide in Indian society using anomie theory.

Design/methodology/approach

The author has applied the content analysis method. The researcher has collated 210 occurrences of suicide from newspapers of Uttar Pradesh between 1 October 2020 and 30 April 2021. The author has recognised the type, patterns and causes of suicide in society by analysing and observing daily news items.

Findings

The result demonstrates that most suicides (16.67%) have been caused by frustration/mental illness, followed by several other causes of suicide such as family problems (13.81%), love affairs (10.00%), poverty (9.05%), harassment (8.57%) and sexual harassment (7.62%). The data shows a major gap in the number of suicide deaths between the genders.

Originality/value

This is an original work of researcher which is basically based on anomie theory.

Citation

Patel, A.B. (2023), "Factors contributing suicide in India", Mental Health and Social Inclusion, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHSI-01-2023-0011