• Anxiety and mood
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.46-51
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• 2007

Objectives : By comparing the prevalence rates of suicide-related behaviors (suicide ideation, plan and attempt) between depressive disorder and anxiety disorder patients, we tried to find the characteristics of suicide-related behaviors in these patients. Methods : Four hundred-three patients participated in the study and the prevalence rates of suicide-related behaviors were investigated using Korean version of Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview plus. Pearson Chi-Square test was used to find the association between depressive or anxiety disorders and suiciderelated behaviors. Results : Statistically significant differences were found between depressive disorder group and anxiety disorder group in terms of suicide ideation ($X^2$=6.173, df=1, p=0.013) and suicide attempt ($X^2$=8.008, df=1, p=0.005). We also found that patients in depressive disorder group were more likely to have suicide ideation (Odds Ratio=2.049, 95% Confidence Interval=1.155-3.635), and attempt suicide (Odds Ratio=4.970, 95% Confidence Interval=1.466-16.845) than patients in anxiety disorder group. Conclusion : These findings suggest that suicide ideation and suicide attempt rates are higher in depressive disorders than in anxiety disorders.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.348-356
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aims to analyze the number of suicide deaths in women, trends in suicide mortality, characteristics of suicide by age, and outcomes of suicide means over the past decade (2011-2021) in South Korea. Methods: Using cause of death data from Statistics Korea, an in-depth analysis of Korean women's suicide trends was conducted for the period of 2011-2021. Results: In 2021, women's suicide death in Korea was 4,159, a rate of 16.2 per 100,000 population. The rate increased by 1.4% from the previous year. Since 2011, women's suicide rate has been on a steady downward trend, but since 2018, it has been on the rise again. Suicide rates among women in their 20s and 30s have increased, especially since the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, and suicide rates among women over 70 years remain high. As compared to 2011, pesticide poisoning and hanging among the means of suicide have decreased significantly, while drug and carbon monoxide continue to increase. Conclusion: Suicide rates for Korean women in their 20s and 30s have increased significantly in recent years, and those for women over 70 years remain high. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the causes and establish national policies for targeted management of these age groups, which contributes significantly to the rising suicide rate among Korean women.

• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.60-63
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• 2019

The rate of suicide is the 5th leading cause of death in Korea. Moreover, suicide is the 1st cause of death in from 2nd to 4th decade. In order to treat suicide attempters who have visited the emergency room and to prevent retries, it is necessary to understand the nature of the suicide and to take the right approach. Suicide is more than doubled in women, and retry rates are high among patients with a history of suicide. Suicidal means are throat, fall, gas poisoning, poisoning and drowning. All suicide attempters should suspect and treat cervical spine injury and airway management, and rapid hyperbaric oxygen therapy is recommended for carbon monoxide addicts. Interviewing a suicide attempter requires a sympathetic attitude and examines the underlying depression or adaptation disorders. Interdisciplinary care with mental health departments is necessary, and interventions in emergency roombased suicide attempt management work can be helpful to connect with the community.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.7-16
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• 2023

Objectives This study aimed to review the Korean Constitution articles 14 and 20 of the "Law on suicide prevention" and investigate public perceptions of specific improvements to suicide prevention policies using results from the Korean 2018 National Survey on Suicide. Methods The questionnaire was designed to analyzing the act restricts sharing of patient information between hospitals, making it difficult to track suicide attempts. The questionnaire was also designed to suggest further medical and normative criteria for objective judgment of continuous follow-up utilizing suicide risk evaluations and proportional principle review that consider patients' and medical staff's basic rights. Results This study identified the result of the 1500 respondents, 79.1% believed that Korea should allow suicide prevention management to be implemented without requiring individual consent to protect suicide attempters. Conclusions According the results, I propose the following criteria for policy improvement: use of anonymized information and non-profit research for technical and ethical considerations, access to medical information only for therapeutic purposes, and use of surgical severity assessment criteria appropriate for Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.285-294
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• 2015

Background: Suicide is one of important health problems in Korea. Previous studies showed factors associated with suicide in individual levels. However, suicide was influenced by society that individuals belong to, so it was required to analyze suicide in local levels. The purpose of this study was to analyze the regional disparities of suicide mortality by gender and the association between local characteristics and suicide mortality. Methods: This study included 229 city county district administrative districts in Korea. Age- and sex-standardized suicide mortality and age-standardized suicide mortality (male/female) were used as dependent variables. City county district types, socio-demographics (number of divorces per 1,000 population, number of marriages per 1,000 population, and single households), financial variable (financial independence), welfare variable (welfare budget), and health behavior/status (perceived health status scores and EuroQol-5 dimension [EQ-5D]) were used to represent the local characteristics. We used hot-spot analysis to identify the spatial patterns of suicide mortality and negative binomial regression analysis to examine factors affecting suicide mortality. Results: There were differences in distribution of suicide mortality and hot-spot regions of suicide mortality by gender. Negative binomial regression analysis provided that city county district types (city), number of divorces per 1,000 population, financial independence, and EQ-5D had significant influences on the age- and sex-standardized suicide mortality per 100,000. Factor influencing suicide mortality was the number of divorces per 1,000 population in both male and female. Conclusion: Study results provided evidences that suicide mortality among regions was differed by gender. Health policy makers will need to consider gender and local characteristics when making policies for suicides.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.10-18
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• 2013

The increasing suicide rate is a serious problem in Korea. Because of increased awareness of suicidality as a problem and because completed suicide is the fourth leading cause of death, it is very important to assess the risk of suicide. The purpose of this review is to provide a systematic examination of predictive validity of measures of suicidal ideation and behavior. A number of instruments are described as useful for identifying individuals "at high risk" for suicidal behavior. However, the predictive validity for most suicide measures has not been established. The present review only includes suicide assessment instruments with published predictive validity. In addition to evaluating the suicide assessment with respect to predictive validity, the present review describes and summarizes the psychometric properties of each measure. In conclusion, because of the complexity of studying the risk of suicide and the paucity of well-designed studies, it is extremely difficult to compare and generalize these findings. In addition, only a few instruments, such as the Scale for Suicide Ideation, Suicide Intent Scale and the Beck Hopelessness Scale, have been found to be significant risk factors for completed suicide. Another problem in the field involves that there have been few suicide measures designed for elderly populations. Clearly, future research is needed to investigate the predictive validity of standardized measures for completed suicide, especially targeting elderly populations.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.232-239
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• 2021

This study aimed to update suicide-related indicators including suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and the number of suicidal deaths. Based on up-to-date information, we observed the trends of suicide-related indicators. In this study, five data sources were used to observe the trends of suicide-related indicators: Statistics Korea (1983-2019), Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination (KNHANES, '07-13, '15-19), Korean Community Health Survey (KCHS, '08-09, '13, '17), Korean Wealth Panel Study (KOWEPS, '12-19), and Korea Health Panel Survey (KHP, '10-13, '16-17). The suicide rate, which peaked in 2011, declined until 2017 and then started to rise again from 2018, recording a suicide rate of 26.9 per 100,000 people in 2019. The rate of suicidal ideation estimated based on the recently available data was 4.62% (KNHANES, '19), 3.51% (KHP, '16), 2.87% (KHP, '17), and 1.70% (KOWEPS, '19). That of suicide attempt as recent year was 0.43% (KNHANES, '19), 0.07% (KOWEPS, '19). Annual percentage change of death by intentional self-harm was -2.11% (Statistics Korea), and that of suicidal ideation was -14.7% (KNHANES), -2.5% (KCHS), -10.6% (KOWEPS), and -11.3% (KHP). Annual percentage change of suicide attempt was -5.0% (KNHANES), -4.4% (KCHS), and -11.3% (KOWEPS). The lower the income level, the higher the probability of experiencing suicide ideation and suicide attempts. Considering the recent increase in suicide rate in contrast to the continuing decline in suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, continuous data observation and appropriate policies regarding suicide prevention are needed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.318-331
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• 2022

The government has been promoting suicide prevention policies, but the elderly suicide rate has still not improved. This study focused on the role of local governments in solving suicide problems and analyzed three-year data from 2015 to 2017 at local governments level to investigate the relationship between suicide prevention policies and elderly suicide rates. Multiple regression analysis and logistic regression analysis was conducted to control social capital factors, demographic factors, and medical use factors that can affect the elderly suicide rate. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that suicide prevention ordinances were enacted and suicide prevention centers were established in areas with high suicide rates. In areas with high suicide rates, the suicide rate decreases if the elapsed period is long after the establishment of the center. From the perspective of suicide rates, it was analyzed that the local welfare support system was more affected. Accordingly, it was confirmed that the suicide prevention policy should be established in connection with the reinforcement of welfare policies

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.264-271
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• 2023

Objectives: Hanging is a common method of attempted suicide. This study investigated the epidemiological profile of attempted and completed suicides by hanging in southern Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 1167 suicide attempts by hanging between 2011 and 2019. All data related to suicide attempts by hanging were collected from the Fars Suicide Surveillance System. The trends in suicide cases and the mean age of attempted and completed suicides were plotted. The chi-square test was used to identify suicide-related factors. Crude rates of incidence, mortality, and standardized fatality during the study period were calculated. Finally, logistic regression was used to identify the predictors of death in individuals who attempted suicide. Results: The mean age of those who attempted suicide was 33.21±16.82 years; the majority were male (80.5%). The rate of attempted and completed suicide by hanging were 3.50 and 2.79 per 100 000 people, respectively. The case-fatality rate was calculated as 79.34%. The results of our study indicated an increasing trend in suicide attempts by hanging. The likelihood of death was 2.28 times higher in individuals with a previous history of suicide attempts and 1.85 times higher in those with a psychological disorder. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest an increasing trend in attempted and completed suicide by hanging, especially among individuals with a history of suicide attempts and psychological disorders. It is necessary to take action to reduce the rate of suicide attempts and identify the underlying causes of suicide attempts by hanging.

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.20-30
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• 2006

An exhibitional suicide is a case of death that the purpose is to demonstrate one's own real intention for others. This exhibitional suicide has a few characteristics that are different from a suicide: seriousness of suicide intention, a method of suicide attempt, and the place of a suicide. In other words, an exhibitional suicide lacks suicide intention, uses a slower method of death, and attempts a suicide at the place which others can easily find. In this light, this paper ascertains that a fair number in poisoning deaths are an exhibitional suicide on the basis of the result of an autopsy by department of forensic medicine school of medicine, Kyungpook National University. The research also confirms that juveniles and women attempt a suicide as often as adults and men, and a great number of suicides are indeed an exhibitional suicide. In terms of a commercial law, many specialists see an exhibitional suicide as an accidental death. However, if we consider an exhibitional suicide as an accidental death, we cannot verify the authenticity of death in an accident. In addition, if we observe the purpose of insurance and suicide exemption period of insurance company, we rather get to know to distinguish an exhibitional suicide from an accident. According to the research, most of the exhibitional suicide results from little or no-relation with others. Therefore, a little interest from family, friend, and neighbor plays a pivotal role in preventing this suicide. Finally, an effort to build database concerning an exhibitional suicide by a psychological autopsy will help people access a plenty of statistical materials and facilitate further study about an exhibitional suicide.