Students say pressure to perform is key factor

Young New Zealanders who kill themselves are not mad, but struggling to live up to other people's expectations, a survey shows.

A total of 384 psychology and maths students at Auckland University were quizzed by one of their lecturers, psychologist John Read.

The study was published this week in a leading US scientific journal, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviour.

Two-thirds of the students said they knew someone who had attempted suicide, and 42 per cent knew someone who had actually committed suicide.

But when asked why New Zealand had one of the world's highest youth suicide rates, only 1 per cent of the students suggested mental illness, 5 per cent suggested depression and 10 per cent drugs or alcohol.

The factor mentioned most often (32 per cent) was pressure to conform or perform.

Other leading suggestions were worries about money and future jobs (25 per cent), abuse and neglect by family and others (14 per cent) and boredom (9 per cent).

When asked what should be done about it, 45 per cent suggested more counselling and helplines, 17 per cent more youth activities such as recreation centres and alcohol- and drug-free clubs, and 13 per cent more education on life skills and how to talk about problems.

Dr Read said the students were saying they "did not get any help through the school system on how to talk about feelings".

"We are still raising boys to feel there is something wrong if you have any feelings other than anger and aggression."

Dr Read said treating stress and depression as mental illnesses made young people less willing to talk because they might be labelled "nutters".

"Everybody has failures," he said. "When you have failures you need to have people that will support you and tell you you are an okay person."

He said the survey also showed that young people did not want to suppress talk about suicide. When shown a list of possible causes of suicide, most disagreed that one cause was "hearing a lot about suicide [newspapers, TV, etc]".

But the country's leading suicide researcher, Dr Annette Beautrais, of Christchurch Medical School, said the students surveyed were probably not aware of studies showing that vulnerable people were influenced by suicide "models" in the media.

She conducted her own survey of 1000 young New Zealanders several years ago and found that they vastly over-estimated the rate of youth suicide.

"The fraction that claim they know someone who died by suicide in the Read study is unbelievably high," said Dr Beautrais.