The largest threat to Australia's suicide rates is the high cost of living and financial strain.

According to alarming new research, more than one-third of Australians know someone who attempted suicide or has just committed suicide.

38% of the 1022 persons polled in the unsettling study by Suicide Prevention Australia reported being affected by suicide either directly or indirectly during the study period.

Seventy percent of people said they had experienced increased distress, and one in five said they had acted suicidally in the previous year.

The national top agency for suicide prevention conducted additional research, which revealed that the cost of living and personal debt were the most frequent stresses cited by Australians, while housing-related stress was the issue that was rapidly escalating.

The head of Suicide Prevention Australia, Nieves Murray, stated that financial issues constituted the biggest threat to the country's mental health and suicide rates and that fresh statistics revealed housing stress had increased particularly quickly among "middle age and medium salary" Australians.

According to Mr. Murray, "our results once again demonstrate the clear relationship between the impact of growing economic and social pressures and distress levels in the community."

According to research, suicide rates can increase two to three years following a disaster. We must take immediate action to address rising distress levels and counter the threat of rising suicide rates in our neighborhood.

88% of the country's frontline suicide prevention services, according to Mr. Murray, have seen an increase in demand over the past 12 months.

Leading mental health support organizations echoed these worries.

Dr. Grant Blahki, the main clinical adviser for Beyond Blue, noted that the mental health advocacy group's latest poll of 15,000 Australians revealed a similar connection between financial difficulty and declining mental health.

We discovered that rising costs of living and high interest rates were making people feel cut off from reality and increasing stress, according to Dr. Blahki.

There is a sense of fatigue even though individuals aren't as aggressively concerned about Covid as they once were. A series of problems have arisen, including the epidemic, natural disasters, and financial anxieties.

According to Dr. Blahki, those who experience financial stress are twice as likely to experience mental health problems, while those who experience mental health problems are also twice as likely to experience financial hardship.

"That's what I see as a GP, if you've got a lot of money problems and money, stress, you know, people can't sleep, they feel horrible about things, it's not good for your mental health," he said.