• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.100-106
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• 2015

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to find out the clinical and sociodemographic characteristics of elderly suicide attempters visiting emergency room, compared to non-elderly adult suicide attempters. Methods : We enrolled suicidal attempters who were treated in the emergency room of the Inje University Ilsan Paik Hospital between June 2013 and July 2015. We conducted a retrospective chart review of 336 suicidal attempters, and compared sociodemographic and clinical characteristics between elderly and non-elderly adult suicide attempters. Results : During the study period, 336 patients visited the emergency room of the medical center after suicide attempts. Among these, there were 71 elderly(21.2%) and 265 non-elderly adult(79.8%) suicide attempters. The suicidal methods among elderly were poisoning(73.3%), hanging(19.7%), cutting(5.6%), and jumping(1.4%). Those in non-elderly were poisoning(73.2%), cutting(17.0%), hanging(6.8%), and jumping(3.0%). The elderly suicide attempters had the tendency to choose more dangerous methods and showed higher lethality compared to adult suicide attempters(20.6% vs. 1.9%, ${\chi}^2=34.565$, p<0.05). On the other hand, premorbid psychiatric disorders had been more commonly diagnosed in non-elderly adults than elderly suicide attempters(49.8% vs. 26.8%, ${\chi}^2=12.024$, p<0.05). Conclusions : The results provide evidence of different sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of elderly suicide attempters compared to non-elderly ones visiting the emergency room. Through this study, it can be seen that the suicide attempt in the elderly tends to be severer than in the non-elderly, but only a small portion of them seek for help from psychiatric intervention. Further study is required to provide effective suicide prevention programs for elderly population.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.905-916
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the types of suicide attitudes among the Korean elderly. Method: The Q-methodology which provides a method of analyzing the subjectivity of each item was used. Thirty-four selected Q-statements from 38 subjects were classified into a shape of normal distributionusing a 9 point scale. The collected data was analyzed using a QUANL PC program. Result: Three types of suicide attitudes for research subjects in Korean elderly were identified. Type I is understanding suicide-self conquest and labor type, Type II is opposing suicide-family band foundation type, and Type III is sympathizing with suicide-painful situation escaping type. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that different approaches of suicide prevention programs are recommended based on the three types of suicide attitudes among Korean elderly.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.30-38
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• 2024

Background: Although Korea ranks first in the suicide rate of elderly individuals, there is limited research on those who attempt suicide, with preventive measures largely based on population-based studies. We compared the demographic and clinical characteristics of elderly individuals who attempted suicide with those of younger adults who visited the emergency department after suicide attempts and identified the factors associated with lethality in the former group. Methods: Individuals who visited the emergency department after a suicide attempt from April 1, 2017, to January 31, 2020, were included. Participants were classified into two groups according to age (elderly, ≥65 years; adult, 18-64 years). Among the 779 adult patients, 123 were elderly. We conducted a chi-square test to compare the demographic and clinical features between these groups and a logistic regression analysis to identify the risk factors for lethality in the elderly group. Results: Most elderly participants were men, with no prior psychiatric history or suicide attempts, and had a higher prevalence of underlying medical conditions and attributed their attempts to physical illnesses. Being sober and planning suicide occurred more frequently in this group. In the elderly group, factors that increased the mortality rate were biological male sex (p<0.05), being accompanied by family members (p<0.05), and poisoning as a suicide method (p<0.01). Conclusion: Suicide attempts in elderly individuals have different characteristics from those in younger adults and are associated with physical illness. Suicides in the former group are unpredictable, deliberate, and fatal. Therefore, tailored prevention and intervention strategies addressing the characteristics of those who are elderly and attempt suicide are required.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.11-20
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• 2015

In order to prevent the elderly people from committing suicide attempts, it is necessary to verify attributes that affect the suicide attempts. It is noted that previous studies have focused on qualitative approaches, and simple correlation analyses to determine the attributes related to the suicide attempts in the elderly people. However, such previous approaches had led to insufficient performance when facing with complicated data sets. In this sense, this study suggests an alternative method in which attribute selection techniques are adopted to determine more relevant attributes of the suicide attempts occurring in Korean elderly people. To verify empirical validity of our proposed method, we used Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) from January 2007 to December 2012. Empirical results proved that the proposed attribute selection techniques showed better predictive effectiveness; 94.4% compared to the simple statistical methods. This study proposes a way to determining the elderly suicide and preventing it to happen.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.236-245
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• 2013

This study analyzed the relationship between elderly suicide rates and socio-economic factors from the macroscopic perspectives. As certain theoretical background of elderly suicide, sociological and economic perspectives are applied. The economic factors of elderly suicide rates consisted of economic growth and unemployment rate, economic activity rate of the aged, and relative poverty rate (income inequality rate). The sociological factors included social welfare spending, divorce rate, growth rate of population aging, and elderly dependency ratio. According to research findings, first, the more economic activity of the aged is low, the more elderly suicide rate is high. Second, the more social welfare spending rate goes flat, the more elderly suicide rate is growing. Third, the more relative poverty rate (income inequality), increasing population aging rate, and elderly dependency ratio are high, elderly suicide rate goes high at the same time. Finally, this study proposed several socio-economic policy alternatives for preventing continuous growth of Korean elderly suicide rate.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.207-219
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of suicide attempts and non-attempts of the elderly living alone and the subjects in this study were 690 elderly persons living alone in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. For data analysis, this study used descriptive analysis, mean comparison correlation analysis, and binominal logistic regression analysis using PASW 20.0. To explain the suicide attempts of elderly persons who live alone, variables such as sex, age education level, monthly household income, religion, subjective economic status, subjective health status, ADL/IADL, depression, hopelessness, social support, and stress were used. The findings of the study were as follows: First, 9.2 percent(64) of the elderly living alone had attempted suicide and 90.8 percent(626) had never attempted suicide. Second, monthly household income, hopelessness, and social support were identified as the factors that affected their suicide attempts. In other words, the elderly living alone who had lower monthly household income, less social support, and greater feelings of hoprlessness had made more suicide attempts. As it is a cross-sectional research using data from non-probability sampling, this has a limitation in generality sampling, this has a limitation in generalizing the study results. To overcome this limitation, longitudinal research using data from probability sampling is necessary.

• 한국노년학
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.1427-1444
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of the suicide ideation, plan and attempt and to examine factors affecting the suicide attempt of the elderly. For these purposes, 1,110 elderly in Chonbuk province were interviewed using structured questionaire. Logistic regression analyses were used to test the association among factors. Major finding of this study are as follow : First, the prevalence of the suicide ideation, plan and attempt was 20.2%, 5.7%, 3.6%. Second, factors for suicide attempt were male sex, the living alone aged, loss of role as a worker, emotional abuse and neglect from family. On the basis of these results, implications for policy and practice are suggested for prevention the suicide of the elderly.

• 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 the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.291-298
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• 2017

This study is to examine the status and trends of regional elderly group(pre-elderly and elderly segment)'s suicide rates and socio-economic factors, to analyze the relevance of suicide rates and socio-economic factors, and to understand differential factors of elderly group's suicide rates between metropolitan areas and small-medium sized areas. For this, analysis on relevance between socio-economic factors and elderly group's suicide rates has been done using regional statistical data for the past ten years(2006~2015) by National Statistical office. According to research findings, Socio-economic factors such as welfare budget ratio, divorce rates, economic activity rates, and financial independent rates have shown different effects on elderly group's suicide rates by age range and regional characteristics. Based on these analyses, this study suggested policy tasks for alleviating suicide rates of elderly group.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.5752-5761
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• 2013

This study was performed to propose the developmental direction of the elderly suicide study by analyzing the trend of study in elderly suicide. A literature search was conducted using RISS, KISS, Nanet. A total of 184 research articles which were published on elderly suicide in Korea from 1996 to 2013 were analyzed with structured analysis forms. For statistical analysis, frequency and percentage were used with EXCEL program. As a results, a study on elderly suicide in the social welfare sector was actively and a survey of general elderly proportion of the study was high. In addition, most concepts of research were associated with suicidal ideation, depression, social support, and stress of the elderly. Therefore, existing in previous studies classified as high-risk elderly people living alone, poor elderly, a man who attempted suicide risk in elderly subjects research through a variety of research methods will be made.