ABSTRACT

Suicide is a public health issue of critical importance. The risk of suicide among students in the health department is considered a major cause of concern globally as a result of the prevalent rate of suicidal ideation and academic stress has been debated as a major contributor to the rate of suicide thoughts among undergraduate students moreover, results of previous studies on this subject are inconsistent. This project research focused on exploring the relationship between academic stress and suicide ideation among undergraduate nursing students of the University Of Benin. The total target population for the study was 277 undergraduate nursing students who are currently in 200 to 400 level. Out of the total population, a sample of 163 was chosen to represent the population. The research adopted the correlational research design and employed a self-administered questionnaire to collect the quantitative primary data. Using, the IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26, descriptive statistics were performed on the collected data. findings from the research revealed that the relationship between academic stress and suicide ideation, academic workload as well as academic performance and suicide ideation are all significant. In conclusion, academic stress can significantly predict suicide ideation among undergraduate nursing student of the University of Benin. Thus, it was recommended that effort to combat suicide ideation should include asking students about their perception of their academic performance, and the programs workload in order to support the students in managing academic stress. To the nursing profession and policy makers, these findings will enable them to train and produce quality nurses to serve the increasing healthcare needs of our society.