Multistate Study on Suicide Risk Reduction and Improving Mental Well Being Among School and College Students in India-An Implementation Research Study Protocol

Seema Mehrotra¹Chetna Duggal²Neeti Rustagi³Ramdas Sarjerao Ransing⁴Pillaveetil Sathyadas Indu⁵Satabdi Chakraborty⁶Tarun Mene⁷Pragya Sharma⁸Deepshikha Prasad⁹Shankar Prinja¹⁰Pulkit Verma¹¹Rajinder K Dhamija¹²Kanak Kataria²Manjula Munivenkatappa¹Navratan Suthar¹³Anilkumar Thekkethayyil Viswanathan¹⁴Neha Dahiya^9*Ashoo Grover⁹

• ¹Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, India
• ²School of Human Ecology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India
• ³Department of Community Medicine & Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Jodhpur, Jodhpur, India
• ⁴Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Guwahati, Guwahati, India
• ⁵Kasaragod Medical College Hospital, Kasaragod, India
• ⁶Department of Psychiatric Social Work, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, New Delhi, India
• ⁷Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar, India
• ⁸Department of Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India
• ⁹Division of Delivery/ Implementation Research, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India
• ¹⁰Department of Community Medicine & School of Public Health, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India
• ¹¹Division of Health Informatics & Data Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India
• ¹²Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, New Delhi, India
• ¹³Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Jodhpur, Jodhpur, India
• ¹⁴Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College Kollam, Kollam, India

Suicide remains a crucial public health concern in India, especially amongst students and young adults. The growing academic pressure, social stigma, and lack of accessible mental health services contribute to the growing crisis and suicide rates in India. The study aims to develop an implementation model for educational institutions for reducing risk of suicide behavior (perceived stress and depressive symptoms) and enhance help-seeking behavior. This multi-sectoral implementation model is grounded in the WHO's recommendation for youth suicide prevention and UMMEED guidelines. The study will adopt a concurrent mixed methods design, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative aspects that would be captured simultaneously. A formative research phase will be initially conducted before taking on the main study and it will be guided by the Updated Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Additionally, the evaluation of the implementation process will be structured using the RE-AIM framework. The study participants will be school and pre-university students, and college students The expected outcome will be achieving reduction of suicide risk