Prevalence and predictors of suicidality among nursing students in Indonesia

Introduction: Nursing students are a vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic because they experience a higher level of stress and mental health problems than the non-healthcare student population, putting them at a higher risk for suicidal behaviour.Aim: To explore suicidality among nursing students and assess the association between independent variables and suicidality. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 670 nursing students from 5 Indonesian universities who were recruited using consecutive sampling. Self-administered validated instruments consisted of 8 sections: sociodemographic questionnaire, RSES to assess self-esteem, BHS to assess hopelessness, UCLA-3 to assess loneliness, GSES to assess self-efficacy, PHQ-9 to assess depression, CD-RISC-10 to assess resilience, and SBQ-R to assess suicidality. Binary logistic regression was employed to identify significant predictors of suicidality.Results: Suicidality prevalence among nursing students was 22.8%. The following factors were significantly associated with suicidality (p < 0.05): low resilience (AOR = 2.044;95%CI: 1.309-3.192), loneliness (AOR = 1.609;95%CI: 1.040-2.492), hopelessness (AOR = 4.448;95%CI: 2.356-8.398), and depression (AOR = 9.413;95%CI: 5.795-15.288).Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that resilience, loneliness, hopelessness, and depression are risk factors for suicidality among nursing students. This outcome can be used as a basis to develop appropriate suicide prevention strategies.