Lilian Hernandez Osorio
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, November 3, 2025, p. 23
To eradicate myths, provide friendly support and address suicidal behavior among students, the Faculty of Chemistry of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) undertook a campaign that highlights the suicidometer, a scale that through nine phases seeks to show where the vulnerable population could be and thus avoid a tragedy.
The idea arose from the specialists of the faculty’s psychological care program, Monserrat Ceballos Sánchez, and the Gender and Equality Unit, Denise Cabrera Hidalgo, who wanted to implement a prevention measure for students and in this way make mental health visible, with which a suicidal idea can be generated and, in cases like this, know how to ask for help.
This measurement establishes nine phases, which begin from the emergence of ideas of death, such as “I want to die” because they have “intolerable” pain, until suicide, which is when the person commits the act.
This tool disseminated on the faculty’s social networks establishes at the second level: “the suicidal desire”, in which the person thinks that others would be better off without them, that they are a hindrance; The “suicidal ideas” phase follows, in which he begins to believe that the only solution is to attack himself; One step higher is when there are already suicidal expressions, such as “I can’t handle this suffering anymore.”
At the fifth level, a “suicide threat” arises, in which you think that if everything remains the same, it is better not to be here anymore. When the person reaches the sixth phase is when a “suicide plan” emerges, as they begin to plan where, how and when to do it.
In the seventh phase there may be a “suicidal gesture”, that is, self-harm, while in the eighth level it is the “suicidal attempt”, in which the person looks for methods and says goodbye, and finally commits it.
Reinforcement for the vulnerable population
Denise Cabrera explained to The Day that this campaign was created within the framework of October 10, which is World Mental Health Day, but also for the International Day of Care and Support on October 29, in order to “reinforce mental health in a comprehensive situation for students”, in addition to breaking taboos and allowing them to ask for help without fear.
Ceballos added that the suicide meter is a “more digestible” tool that seeks to break the gap between those who need psychological support and those who request it, since the suicidal process is not linear, but “there is one where the person’s suffering increases and reaches a point where they no longer see a way out and the only option is to choose not to live anymore.”
