Factors Influencing Suicide

Factors Influencing Suicidal Behaviors in Cambodia: A Study on Suicide Reports in New Media

Introduction

Today suicide has caught attention from scholars in different fields such as psychology, public health, economics, social work and sociology. It is not only from the field of academia but also from public institutions such as hospitals, ministry of health, health science institutions and world organisations mainly World Health Organisation ‘WHO’ which is closely watching the trend of suicide rate in the world.

In the last 45 years, the suicide rate has been increasing up to six per cent in some countries. In the year 2000, approximately one million people died of suicide, which this figure was believed to be equal to mortality rate of

Yet, suicide still exists in the Kingdom. It has been contradictory with the concept of oneself killings which is not accepted or event prohibited in Buddhism. But what are the factors influencing it? Generally speaking, in Cambodia, in suicide is not accepted by cultural belief and the death by the outcome of suicide always considered a taboo one. There will be more rituals to be performed by Buddhist monks than the natural death’s.

Nature of suicide is varied from province to province and age group vary from case to case. This paper will be looking at the nature of maximum attempting suicide and suicide ceases in this Buddhist country from new reports. To support this study, statistics from Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Health and from other sources which related to suicide data in Cambodia will also be brought in by keeping the study’s objectives the same.

This study will be answering to the question that “why they killed themselves” by analyzing the motivational reasons behind each case carefully as reported in newspapers. This study is also expected to be very useful for policy makers, academicians and researchers in helping out and setting light for any further in-depth study in the future. It is to be noted that the data is secondary data and have been retrieved from various news

In Cambodia, Buddhism does not play only the spiritual roles and talk about religious life alone. Since it was brought to Cambodia from second century, Buddhism becomes an institution which holding Khmer identities, place for schooling, as a hospital, as an art school, politics and defence institution and many more. Till mid 20th century, Buddhist pagodas which controlled by Buddhist monks are basements for building up society. Education was held by pagodas. Evidently, school in Cambodia today are on the pagoda land and supported by pagodas with physical structure and some partial human resources. Only few days ago, state almost fully supports schools. Due to the education is a part of Buddhist religious commitment in Cambodia, Cambodians are influenced by Buddhist philosophy and has deep root in every aspect of lives. Buddhist constitutes up to 95% of total population in present