Abstract:
This research project focuses on the various causes of suicide among the secondary students in Tharaka Nithi County. Suicide has been continuously witnessed all over the country with the victims being mostly the adolescents. The researcher used Tharaka Nithi county, Chuka igambangombe Constituency as the preferred case study. Many researchers on the same state that; suicide is the leading cause of death among the adolescents and the young adults. The research focuses on what influences the secondly students into committing suicide, both from the suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and suicide death. The specific objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of suicide among secondary students, to explore the various causes of suicide among the young adults who are mostly secondary students and to assess the major causes of suicide in the area of study. The researcher targeted four secondary schools in Chuka Igambang’ombe Constituency. The schools had a total of 600. The researcher settled at a sample of 10% of the target population which was 60 respondents. The researcher used 15 questionnaires in each of the four schools to obtain the required information from the targeted respondents. After coding the data obtained from the sampled respondents, results showed that harassment; physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence and childhood abuse and poor performance were the major causes of suicidal acts with the percentage of 75%, 60%, and 61% while social loss least contributed to suicidal acts with a percentage of 51%.