KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT ON DEPRESSION AND SUICIDAL IDEATION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES IN A TERTIARY INSTITUTION, BENIN CITY.

ABSTRACT

Social support consists of a network of people drawn from family, friends and the community in which one belongs to, a lack of social support gives rise to depressive symptoms and this has a negative influence on the life of students. Lack of knowledge of social support increases the risk of suicide and depression among students.This study aims to access the level of knowledge of social support, the level of utilization of social support and the factors that promotes the use of social support among undergraduates residing in halls of residence in university of Benin. A descriptive non experimental research design was used for the study with a total of 380 participants. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The reliability was established through Cronchba's alpha reliability method, with a score of 0.74, 0.79 and 0.94 for each objective respectively. Findings from this study showed that level of knowledge of social support on depression and suicidal ideation was poor among 153(40.3%), moderate among 226(59.5%) and high among 1(0.3%) respondents. The level of utilization of social support among undergraduates was poor among 205(53.9%) and good among 174(46.1%).The factors that promotes the use of social support among undergraduates in university of Benin were awareness of social support, availability of time and free cost/charges. In conclusion, this study assessed the level of knowledge of undergraduates in University of Benin and majority of the students had moderate knowledge on social support, this is however not adequate to tackle depression and suicidal ideation.

Keywords: Social support, Knowledge, Suicidal ideation, Depression.