ABSTRACT

Background: People with major depressive disorder have a high mortality rate due to suicide. Suicide ideation is grounds for suicide and suicide attempt, but suicidal ideation often remains undetected.

Aim: This study aims to investigate prevalence rates of the severity levels of suicidal ideation and related risk factors among patients with major depressive disorder.

Methods: A total of 250 patients with major depressive disorder were recruited from the psychiatric clinic in Ali Kamal consultation center included in this cross-sectional study. The data were collected from September 2020 to March 2021 through the utilization of interviews guided by items of the questionnaire. Beck suicide ideation inventory, Beck depression scale, Sociodemographic and psychiatric history characteristics were included in the questionnaire. The SPSS version 25 was used for data analysis.

Results: The result shows that the patients with major depressive disorder experienced high rates of moderate level of suicidal ideation (64.4%). Sever level of suicidal ideation was significant (P<0.001) higher among patients with divorced widowed, never benefit from treatment results, history of suicidal attempt, extreme level of depression than the other subgroups of related factors.

Conclusion: The Current study clearly indicates high prevalence rates of moderate level of suicidal ideation among patients with major depressive disorder. The study points that the more the severity of depression, the more severity of suicidal ideation.

Recommendation: The Patients with a major depressive disorder require regularly monitoring and psychiatric services to ensure safety.

Keywords: Suicidal ideation, major depressive disorder, severity level