Perceived Social Support as a Protective Factor in Suicide among Psychiatric Patients with Major Depressive Disorder in Pakistan

Suicide is biggest cause of death worldwide; research on potential protective factors is required. Therefore, we investigated role of perceived social support as a protective factor. Particularly, we hypothesized that perceived social support is associated with suicide ideation among depressed patients and explored gender difference in suicide ideation and perceived social support among depressed patients. A purposive convenient sample of 100 diagnosed depressed outpatients were recruited from different psychiatric units of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The age range of sample was between 18 to 50 years. Suicide ideation of depressed patients were measured by Beck scale of suicidal ideation (BSSI) developed by Beck, Kouacs & Weissman (1970) whereas perceived social support was measured by Provision of Social Relations (PSR), developed by Tuner, Frankel, and Levin (1983). Result of current study suggests that perceive social support is associated with less likelihood of attempting suicide among depressed patients(r = -.46, p<0.05) and there are no significant gender difference in suicidal ideation and perceived social support among male and female patients with depression (p>0.05). Our study suggests that social support could be protective factor against suicidal thoughts among depressed patients.