The Prediction of Suicide Ideation Based on Perceived Social Support, Personality Traits, and Meaning of Life in Medical Students during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study

 After the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many medical schools moved to online classrooms, resulting in lower social interactions and higher psychological issues among medical students, which can be associated with suicide ideation. This study aimed to predict suicide ideation based on perceived social support, personality traits, and meaning of life in medical students.

 This prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on medical students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, from 2021 to 2022. Based on the convenience sampling method, suicide ideation was assessed using the last Persian-translated valid questionnaires, including the Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSSI), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the revised form of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R), and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ). The data were collected by filling out the checklist through a social media-based questionnaire and analyzed through the Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression analysis by SPSS software.

 385 medical students [184 men with a mean ± standard deviation (SD) of age of: 27.9 ± 5.5] were included in the final analysis. The results showed a significant correlation between social support, personality traits, and meaning of life in medical students with suicide ideation (P < 0.01). Regression analyses also revealed a difference between social support, personality traits, and meaning in life (P < 0.05) which was more prominent in the neuroticism trait (β = 0.74).

 Perceived social support, personality traits, and meaning in life can predict the suicide ideation of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic.