Understanding Suicide in Medical Students: A Narrative Review

Background: Suicide is death caused by injuring oneself with the intent to die. There are multiple factors involved in increasing the likelihood of a suicidal attempt. It is important to review such risk factors to understand the most common and universal factors responsible for it. Medical students are at higher risk to commit suicide as compared to the general population. Tracking these factors are useful indicators to prevent such acts in the right time window. Objectives: The current review of literature aims at bringing together multiple researches on suicide in a specific population of medical students. It further explores various studies estimating prevalence rates of suicide among medical students, prevalence rates of suicide across the stratified groups of medical professions. It also aims at understanding the most common risk factors associated with suicide among the population. Methods: Using various electronic databases, a literature review was conducted (PubMed, Science Direct, Research gate and specific journals). Publications listed using the search term “suicide”, “suicidal ideation”, “suicidal attempt”, “prevalence”, “risk factors”, “medical students”, “medical professionals”, “suicide risk”, were screened. Corresponding studies in Indian context were also searched.  Result: It was found that the most commonly associated risk factors with suicide was substance use, lower socio-economic status, academic stress, depression and anxiety. Conclusion: Hence, bringing together literature the researchers finally provide future clinical implications, possible interventions and prevention strategies based on the data found after reviewing the literature.