Suicide Prevention In Nigeria: A Medicoreligious Approach

Abstract

The aim of the World Health Organization to reduce suicide by 10% by 2020 is a call to all countries to establish national prevention strategies. The establishment of the Suicide Research and Prevention Initiative (SURPIN) was prompted because there is a shortage of comprehensive and structured suicide prevention initiativeswith a national spread, as there are only a handful of organizations
dedicated to this. The aim of the initiative is to organize suicide research and prevention activities targeted at at risk groups and to offer
crisis intervention services. It organized several community activities including trainings for religious leaders, media practitioners and university campus campaigns. The most impactful of SURPIN's activities has been the crisis hotlines and its ability to link callers from different parts of the country with mental health services near them, and thus enable them seek medical care. The initiative set up mobile hotlines which can be called from all parts of the country covering four major telecommunications networks. The first one hundred calls were from a regional spread, with 78% from the South-West; mainly the commercial capital Lagos (77%), 6% from the Federal Capital Territory, 5% from South-East/South-South, and 11% from the North. The experience so far has shown that there is a yearning need for hotlines through which the citizens can seek help, information and other helpful services. There is recommendation for the hotlines to be tollfree and for improved government funding of such and similar initiatives.

Key words: Suicide prevention, crisis hotlines, research.