Study pressure, copycat syndrome

Study pressure, copycat syndrome

Stuti Shukla

Posted: Jan 20, 2010 at 2352 hrs IST

Mumbai The motive when students kill themselves is invariably academic pressure – this accounts for 99 per cent suicides in the age group 12-18 – but psychiatrists sought to assess why the trend has risen of late and put it down to three reasons: deprivation of sunshine, exam results, and the copycat syndrome.

“The copycat syndrome is where a person with suicidal tendencies gets influenced by other suicides. There are high chances that children will get influenced by and copy other children who have committed suicide,” says Dr Shubhangi Parkar, head of psychiatry at KEM Hospital, Parel.

Crime Records Bureau figures show India’s suicide rate has risen 8 per cent a year for 10 years. According to a 2007 estimate, 45 per cent of suicides involve people between 15 and 29. And WHO lists suicide among the top three causes of death in the age group 15-35.

Sushant Patil, 12, had failed in four of six subjects at Dadar’s Shardashram School. Bhajanpreet Bhullar, 18, had failed three of six subjects in a physiotherapy course at DY Patil College, Navi Mumbai.

“In the Indian system of education there is no place for a child with 40 per cent marks. Parents and teachers have to realise all students can’t be rankers,” says Dr Kersi Chavda, president of Bombay Psychiatrists Society. He also blamed pressure on students to become doctors and engineers. “Why can’t we let students opt for vocational subjects that they may be good at?”

Bhajanpreet would have understood that argument. In her room, her messages motivating herself indicate the pressure: her sister is in a pilot training course in New Zealand and her brother is studying engineering.

Such youngsters need parental support, says psychologist Amreen Pradhan. “In most suicide cases, it is because the child has no one to talk out his problems with.”

Psychiatrist Dr Yusuf Matcheswalla agrees parents today are too busy: “Even if a depressed child shows signs, the parent does not notice them.”

Vaishali Shah, Std XI, is already training for IIT-JEE. “I am expected to score well at all exams; if I don’t, I get yelled at,” she says.

What adds to the pressure is the knowledge how expensive their education is, says Jayant Jain, president of All India Federation of Parents.

Distressed teenagers account for 70 per cent of the phone calls to a helpline run by NGO Aasra, says founder Johnson Thomas.

source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/study-pressure-copycat-syndrome/569371/