Suicide Ideation: Role of Psychological and Social factors among Indian Police Officers

Abstract

Suicide Ideation has been considered as an important antecedent of attempted suicide. It refers to the cognitive aspect of suicide, and may be considered an early detection of more serious suicidal behaviour. When people view their lives from negative perspective filled with emotional pain and distress, they inflate the consequences of their mistakes, start believing that they will continue to fail and should give up altogether. Police officers are almost under stress to meet the demands of the public and works under high stressful conditions as they have to keep the crime rate under control. They have no breaks, no vacations, no weekends and have to work in all weather conditions providing public with all comforts. The paper focuses on the psychological variables and demographic factors such as anxiety, depression, alcohol, age, gender, socio-economic status, rank, years of service, years of current position, educational qualifications, marital status, presence of health-related problems that seems to play an important role in understanding the predictors of suicide ideation and suicide among Indian Police officers.