Suicide Surge among Students: Is it a Social Capital Deficit

Description

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21273577

Kiran and Taruna Gera (Department of Applied Psychology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, Haryana)

Suicide is a major concern for people of all ages. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO, 2025) it is a third leading cause of death among adults. There are well-known risk factors related to suicide outcomes among individuals, as well as protective factors (social & psychological) that decrease the likelihood of engaging in suicidal risk behaviour. There is a need to find out more social factors that play a role in mitigating the effect of these risk factors. The aim of the present review to find out what type of relationship exists between individual-level social capital and suicide outcomes among students. For this purpose, online databases were used to find articles that study the relationship between the concerned variables. It was found that social capital and related dimensions have a significant effect in decreasing the likelihood of engaging in suicide and suicide risk behaviour. The result suggests that improving social capital and related dimensions, such as trust, reciprocity and mutual relationships, are crucial for students to prevent suicide and suicide risk behaviour.