Abstract

Over the past years, suicide and suicidal ideation have become a Mental Health concern in Nigeria. With this concerns, the study examined the impact of Self-esteem and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder on suicidal ideation among victims of sexual violence. In line with the study objectives, three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated and tested. Participants for the study consisted of 28(23 Christians and 5 Muslim) victims/survivors of different forms of sexual violence from 3 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) who support victims of sexual violence, drawn through a purposive sampling technique. Participants were within the age range of 11-31 years. Results revealed that self-esteem has no significant main effect on suicidal ideation F (1, 24) =.439, p=.514 while PTSD has a significant main effect on suicidal ideation F (1, 24) =0.032. The results also showed that self-esteem and PTSD do not have any significant interaction effects on suicidal ideation F (1, 24) =1.56, P=.224. It was recommended that all victims of sexual violence and other traumatic experience should undergo psychological evaluation to help alleviate the symptoms and distress.

Keywords

self-esteem, posttraumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation & sexual violence