The Prevalence of Suicide Thoughts and Attempted Suicide Plus Their Risk Factors Among Iranian Students: A Systematic Review Study

Suicide is a very important issue and because the students are active members of society, suicide behaviors among them are more important. Several factors are involved in students’ suicide behaviors and by identifying these factors it would be possible to prevent suicide among them. The aim of this review was to determine the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and attempts plus their relative risk factors among Iranian students.
This study is a systematic review carried out in October 2016, using different search engines including SID, Magiran, Google Scholar, Pubmed and Scopus. The keywords used were suicide, university, student and their Persian equivalents and it was found a total of 26 relevant articles.
The results of this study revealed that suicide attempts varied from 1.8% to 3.5% and suicidal thoughts ranged from 6.2% to 42.7%. In most studies, suicide was associated with psychiatric disorders, especially depression. Suicidal thoughts and attempts were higher in single than married and in male than in female students. Being away from family has increased suicidal thoughts.
Suicidal thoughts and attempts are rather serious problems in Iranian students. Therefore, it is necessary to identify students who have suicidal thoughts and try to prevent them from committing suicide. Furthermore, suicidal thoughts which may lead to suicidal attempts can be decreased as much as possible.