DEPRESSION: 7m Nigerians risk suicide

THE growing incidence of suicide among Nigerians has become worrisome to the extent that psychiatrists and other physicians have called for high index of suspicion for signs and symptoms of depression among their patients. They point to research which reveals that  during their lifetime about 3.0 per cent of Nigerians will have thoughts about ending their lives, while some will plan on how to kill themselves and actually carry out an attempt to kill themselves. According to the World Health Organisation, WHO, there are 322 million people living with depression in the world. In the WHO suicide ranking, Nigeria, with 15.1 suicides per 100,000 population per year, is ranked the 30th most suicide-prone out of 183 nations in the world. Nigeria also rates 10th in Africa after countries with higher rates of suicide such as Togo (ranked 26th in the world), Burkina Faso (22nd), Cameroun (19th) Zimbabwe (16th), Central African Republic (13th), Sierra Leone (11th), Angola (9th), Equatorial Guinea (7th), and Cote D’Ívoire (5th). Medical practitioners  under the aegis of the Society of Family Physicians of Nigeria, SOFPON, raised the alarm that seven million Nigerians are living with depression, a major risk factor for suicide, and called for well structured Primary Healthcare Centres, PHCs, that would help detect and treat depression early before the onset of suicide attempts. The President of SOFPON, Lagos Zone, Dr. Blessing Chukwukwelu noted: “In Nigeria, only one-fifth of those with a depressive episode receive any treatment, and only one in 50 receives treatment that is minimally adequate.