Prevalence and psychosocial correlates of suicidal ideation among adolescents living with HIV in Southwestern Nigeria, West Africa

Introduction: Adolescents with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) have been reported to have a higher prevalence of suicidal behavior compared to those who were HIV negative. Suicidal ideation is an important comorbidity in adolescents with HIV because it has been shown to be a good predictor of both attempted and completed suicide in this group of people. Material and methods: Participants (n = 201) who met the inclusion criteria were consecutively recruited from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research. Confidentiality was maintained. All the questionnaires were filled by participants, except for the MINI-Kid, which was administered by the researcher. Results were analyzed with SPSS version 20. Results: Prevalence of current and lifetime suicidal ideation was 14.9% and 33.3% respectively. Non-disclosure (p = 0.021) and physical and emotional abuse (p = 0.009, p = 0.020) were associated with lifetime suicidal ideation, while gender (p = 0.025), primary school (p = 0.017), polygamous family (p = 0.040), poor social support (p = 0.031), decline in academic performance (p = 0.005), loss of family member (p = 0.007), discrimination (p = 0.040), and physical and emotional abuse (p = 0.027, p = 0.002) were associated with current suicidal ideation. Only loss of family member to HIV (p = 0.003) was associated with current suicidal ideation after a binary logistic regression analysis. Conclusions: Findings from this study highlight the need for clinicians to regularly assess adolescents with HIV infection for suicidal behavior, as failure to do this may further worsen the patients' condition.