Impulsivity and Perceived Social Support as Predictors of Suicidal Ideation among Senior Secondary School Students in Nsukka Educational Zone of Enugu State

Abstract

This study investigated impulsivity and perceived social support as predictors of suicidal ideation among senior secondary school students in Nsukka Educational Zone Enugu State Nigeria. Three hundred participants comprising 153 females and 147 males with age range of 13-17 years (M 14.77, SD 1.48) and were drawn using a multi-stage sampling technique (balloting, systematic and simple random methods). The study adopted a correlational research design in which multidimensional scale of perceived social support (Zimet et al., 1988), The Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire-JR (Reynolds, 1987) and Barratt Impulsive Scale -11: The BIS-11 (Stanford et al., 2009) were administered for data collection. While hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis was used for data analysis. The results indicated that impulsivity positively predicted suicidal ideation among secondary school students β = 4.585, t = 15.677, P<.001).  This implies that students who are impulsive are at high risk of suicidal ideation. The results further revealed that perceived social support and its three dimensions did not predict suicidal ideation among secondary school students (β= 5.412,  t = 1.818, Significant others β= .745,  t = -.463, family β= 1.070,  t = .663, friends β= -2.519,  t = -.1.276 ,P>.05). Finally, impulsivity and perceived social support did not jointly predict suicidal ideation among secondary school students β= -.082, t = -1.972, p>.05. There is need for orientation/workshop among secondary school students to educate them against taking actions without foresight that are poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unnecessarily risky, and inappropriate to situations at hand in the bid to forestall suicidal ideation.