Availability of Mental Health Services and its Effects on the Suicide Rate of African and Asia-Pacific States

Kristine Cerenado¹

1. Department of Interdisciplinary Studies/Faculty, Far Eastern University, Manila, Philippines.

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.9 , Issue.7 , pp.34-39, Jul-2023

Online published on Jul 31, 2023

Copyright © Kristine Cerenado . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
This study explores the effect of the availability of mental health services such as the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, inpatient facilities, and outpatient facilities on the suicide rate of countries belonging to the United Nations (UN) African and Asia-Pacific States. Specifically, it aims to determine (1) the demographic profile of the African and Asia-Pacific states, concerning mental health; (2) the overall significant relationship between the availability of mental health services to the suicide rate of the African and Asia-Pacific state; and (3) the effect of the additional number of psychiatrists, psychologists, inpatient facilities, and outpatient facilities on the suicide rate of the African and Asia-Pacific states. Thus, it follows a quantitative research design. Multiple Regression, through the application Microsoft Excel and JASP, is the statistical treatment used to analyze data. Whereas all data used in this study is from the Global Health Observatory (GHO) of the World Health Organization (WHO). Based on the results, it was concluded that (1) Zimbabwe and South Korea have the highest crude suicide rate per both sexes per 100 000 population for the African and Asia-Pacific states, respectively; (2) there is a significant relationship between the availability of mental health services to the suicide rate of the African and Asia-Pacific State; and (3) the number of psychiatrists, inpatient facilities, and outpatient facilities have a positive effect on the suicide rate of the two regional states while the number of psychologists has a negative effect on the suicide rate of the two regional states. To further open and enrich the discussion, it is recommended to maximize all the UN regional states as research subjects and to include other forms of mental health services.

Key-Words / Index Term :
mental health, suicide rates, services availability, Asia-pacific states, African states

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