An exploration into the experiences of psychosocial support services for sucidal ideation offered at a South African university

Abstract

The prevalence of suicide among young people in South Africa is a reason for serious concern. The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG, 2013) reported that the second leading cause of death among university students is suicide, with 20% of students experiencing suicidal ideation during their study years. Suicidal ideation is the first step towards suicide – and thus offers the opportunity to implement an intervention. Most universities in South Africa offer student counselling services, which place universities in an ideal position to create the psychosocial buffer needed to prevent suicide. Research has shown that for psychosocial support services to be beneficial, they must be experienced as effective by the recipients of such services. The aim of this research was to explore the experiences of a recipient of psychosocial support services offered at a South African university to counter suicidal ideation. A qualitative case-study design was used, to allow participant-generated meanings of the psychosocial support to be heard. Volunteer sampling was employed by means of a sampling flyer, which resulted in one participant coming forward, who had attended the student support centre because of suicidal ideation in 2016 and 2017. The participant took part in two semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using Giorgi’s (2009) descriptive phenomenological method. The analysis revealed that the participant had experienced certain services as effective and others not. Factors that negatively influenced the experienced effectiveness included lack of capacity, ethical constraints, cost, internal conflicts and lack of openness and honesty, pre-conceived notions, demographic differences, and lack of visibility and awareness. Factors that positively influenced the experienced effectiveness included the counselling environment, staff demeanour and language use, love of a significant other, and self-understanding. Assisting the recipient in understanding themselves and their biases, and strengthening their reason to live, can positively influence the perceived effectiveness of an intervention. Suicidology research on psychosocial support is scarce and the scale of suicidal ideation is vast. Thus, it is recommended that more qualitative and quantitative research be conducted to holistically understand the psychosocial support services offered at universities, from both the recipient’s and the provider’s perspectives.