ABSTRACT

Suicidal behaviour is currently becoming a social and health problem affecting the overall wellbeing of students in most of the tertiary institutions in Nigeria especially the Southwestern region of the country. Previous studies on prevention of suicidehave been largely from medical, religious and counselling perspectives with insignificant attention paid to how to apply Durkheim's social solidarity theory to curb prevalence of suicide among university undergraduates. The aim of this paper is to shed light on how Durkheimian theory of social solidaritycan be applied to curb the prevalence of suicide among students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State which is also applicable to other Nigerian Universities.Data were collected through an in-depth oral interview from the Unit Head of Guidance and Counselling Unit of The Division of Student Affairs of Obafemi Awolowo University who attends to cases of suicide among the students while 3 other staff members who are charged with the responsibility of handling suicide cases were equally interviewed. Data were descriptively analysed in sociological context.The research work found out that the underlying cause of suicide among the students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife was family disruption or dysfunction. Durkheim's theory of social solidarity presupposes that social support, cooperation and love can encourage students to have hope and positive mind when going through life stresses which mostly resulted to suicide.