Use of ICT in Preventing Suicidal Ideation

Abstract

Suicide is a major problem not only in Sri Lanka but also in the whole world. Even though, since 1995 deaths by suicides have been decreased in Sri Lanka, attempts on suicides have increased rapidly. Increasing non-fatal suicides has become a major public health problem in Sri Lanka. On average 12 succeed on their suicide attempts per day, where as 10 times more non-fatal suicide attempts were reporting. The critically of the problem is such that, suicide occur as an acute change in emotions or as a continuing stressful events. Suicide prevention cannot be addressed from a single perspective because many psychological and sociological factors lead to suicide. Thus, suicide prevention should be addressed through multidisciplinary perspective. But most of the leading causes behind suicidal ideation situations can be effectively manage by providing appropriate support in term of belongingness. Face to face discussions conduced with the people who attempted suicide and the psychological experts in the domain concluded that due to busy life styles and privacy issues people are hesitating to meet counselors and obtain necessary help. And people are hesitating to talk with a known party due to shame, blame and other emotional situations. This increase the importance of providing a real-time solution to the community to stretch the idea of caring. Since we are in the field of ICT, we have been using action research methodology in order to find a proper strategy to prevent suicide. Apart from what we gained from referring existing literature regarding suicide and suicide prevention, close relationship with experts in sociology and psychology fields, people who already work in suicide prevention, and previous suicide attempters helped greatly in successful implementation of our solution. Main goals of our project are to increase awareness on suicide prevention in general public and to develop a communication platform to discuss and express the problems and feelings of the users, with close monitoring of psychologists, counselors, etc. We have developed a web based solution with mobile SMS access.