• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.271-281
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• 2015

Using data from 2011 Elderly Living Condition Survey database, this study analyzed risk factors for suicide ideation of Korean elderly persons. The analysis sample consists of 10,003 cases. The main purpose of this research was to explore the effects of social quality factor on suicide ideation of Korean elderly persons. Analysis results show that gender, age, area of residence, living alone, subjective standard of living, activities of daily living(ADLs), and geriatric depression are significant predictors of suicide ideation. Key findings are that social quality factor such as experiencing feeling hurt from others' words and actions like avoiding conversations, disregarding one's opinions, pretending to be not heard, getting irritated, grumbling, etc. has the largest effects on suicide ideation. Analysis results imply that without improving social quality, it would not be possible to lower elderly suicide rate.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.127-146
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• 2013

The elderly suicide has become a social problem, and the need for academic and practice-based knowledge for preventing elderly suicide has been addressed. Unlike previous literature focusing on identifying risk factors, this study aimed to address protective ones which help to overcome suicidal behavior among older adults. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how older adults get over being suicidal and get back to life, and to identify what helps them during the process. Both in-depth interviews with 35 elderly with suicide attempts and field notes were analyzed through thematic analysis. The older adults described a pathway to rediscovering a 'will to live' that was related to a 'mind's incline' and included two kinds of protective factors. Based on the findings, it addresses the implication for the elderly suicide prevention utilizing protective factors.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.372-382
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a multidimensional suicide prevention program for Korean elders by utilizing a community network and to evaluate its effect. Methods: A non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. The subjects were recruited from two different elderly institutions located in D city and K province, Korea. Nineteen subjects in the control group received no intervention and 20 subjects in the experimental group received a multidimensional suicide prevention program. Results: There were more significant decreases in depression, suicide ideation, and increases in life satisfaction in the experimental group compared to the control group. Conclusion: According to the above results, the multidimensional suicide prevention program for Korean elders decreased stressful events like depression, and suicide ideation and increased life satisfaction through the community network. These findings suggest that this program can be used as an efficient intervention for elders in a critical situation.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.215-224
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• 2014

It is hardly surprising for the current elder generation to choose extreme measure, that is to commit suicide, because of various social or health problems caused by financial difficulties and diseases, for neither individuals nor the nation had not prepared for their later lives. Therefore, the number of elder suicide is rapidly increasing, so that it is becoming a big social issue. Research in various fields related to elderly suicide has been done due to recent huge interest, but most of them focused on microscopic factors and it is likely that most are in national level or individual level, so research about elderly suicide by regional areas is insufficient. Due to the nature of Korean administration system which is operated by each local government, study on elderly suicide by regional areas is acutely required. The purpose of this study is to draw policy suggestions of preventing suicide by analyzing current state of suicide rates in terms of sex(male elder vs female elder) and age(young old vs old old) in each 16 regions for 9years(from 2003 to 2011) and then analyzing interrelationships between the suicide rates and socio-economic factors.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.445-458
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• 2015

This research is aged 65 or older with chronic pain and social support, are subject to the elderly wanted to know the effect on depression and suicide intention. This research was done through targeting elderly with chronic pain who use welfare center. The data collection period from April 20 in 2014, implemented by May 20. finally 178 kinds of types of data were analyzed. The collected data is Person's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis by using SPSS 18.0, t-test, ANOVA. In this research results chronic pain, depression and suicide was observed a significant correlation between the degree of social support appear also showed a significant negative correlation of depression and suicide. Also, chronic pain can affect the degree of social support, suicide was identified as the most powerful variable impact on depression. The elderly with Chronic pain is more severe the higher the degree of suicide, The results were lower social support is also of increasing depression and suicide. There fore family and social care and social support services need to develop for prevent depression and suicide for the elderly, also needs programs invention for chronic pain as well.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.72-78
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• 2018

Objectives The high suicide rate has risen as a main concern in South Korea. Given the complexity of the mechanism resulting in complete suicide, studies targeting various populations are needed for broader understanding of its risk factors. This study aims to analyze the factors affecting the suicidal tendency in the population of the elderly living alone in Seoul depending on basic elderly-care services. Methods A total number of 415 people participated in the study. Home-visit interviews were administered by trained interviewers. Suicidal tendency was measured by the Korean version of mini international neuropsychiatric interview (K-MINI). Health-related quality of life was measured by a brief version of the World Health Organization Quality-of-life Scale (WHOQOL-BREF). Alcohol problem was assessed by the Korean version of the alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT-K). Among total subjects of 415 interviewees, the actual responses of 408 people were used for the final analysis. Results The result showed that the suicide risk was high in persons isolated from social support [odds ratio (OR) = 4.49], having depression (OR = 14.85), and having low quality of life (OR = 4.39). Conclusions We found that social support, depression and health-related quality of life are associated with suicidal tendency in the elderly living alone on basic services. Our evidence will contribute to suicide prevention policy for the elderly living alone on care services.

• 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.

• 한국노년학
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.173-200
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• 2017

This study is designed to verify the actual effect on the prevention of the elderly suicide of the integrated crisis intervention service which has been widely provided across all local communities in Gyeonggi-province focusing on the integrated crisis intervention model developed for the prevention of elderly suicide. The integrated crisis intervention model for the local communities and its manual were developed for the prevention of elderly suicide by integrating the crisis intervention theory which contains local community's integrated system approach and the stress vulnerability theory. For the analysis of the effect, the geriatric depression and suicidal ideation scale was adopted and the data was collected as follows; The data was collected from 258 people in the first preliminary test. Then, it was collected from the secondary test of 184 people after the integrated crisis intervention service was performed for 6 months. The third collection of data was made from 124 people after 2 or 3 years later using the backward tracing method. As for the analysis, the researcher used the R Statistics computing to conduct the test equating, and the vertical scaling between measuring points. Then, the researcher conducted descriptive statistics analysis and univariate analysis of variance, and performed multi-level modeling analysis using Bayesian estimation. As a result of the study, it was found out that the integrated crisis intervention model which has been developed for the elderly suicide prevention has a statistically significant effect on the reduction of elderly suicide in terms of elderly depression and suicide ideation in the follow-up measurement after the implementation of crisis intervention rather than in the first preliminary scores. The integrated crisis intervention model for the prevention of elderly suicide was found to be effective to the extent of 0.56 for the reduction of depression and 0.39 for the reduction of suicidal ideation. However, it was found out in the backward tracing test conducted 2-3 years after the first crisis intervention that the improved values returned to its original state, thus showing that the effect of the intervention is not maintained for long. Multilevel analysis was conducted to find out the factors such as the service type(professional counseling, medication, peer counseling), characteristics of the client (sex, age), the characteristics of the counselor(age, career, major) and the interaction between the characteristics of the counselor and intervention which affect depression and suicidal ideation. It was found that only medication can significantly reduce suicidal ideation and that if the counselor's major is counseling, it significantly further reduces suicidal ideation by interacting with professional counseling. Furthermore, as the characteristics of the suicide prevention experts are found to regulate the intervention effect on elderly suicide prevention in applying integrated crisis intervention model, the primary consideration should be given to the counseling ability of these experts.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.73-84
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• 2010

This study conducted a secondary analysis by using original data of performed by Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs to determine factors affecting doctor's diagnosed disease-related mental health for the elderly aged over 65 years living in Korea. The survey was conducted in 2007 and it evaluated finally 720 cases by excluding cases with no answer or a wrong answer. The results were as follows. The proportion of the elderly who stress cognition was influenced when subjects were female and older, lower subjective health condition and osteoporosis, showed statistically significant difference. The proportion of the elderly who experience depression was influenced when subjects were older, had not health insurance or medical care, and lower subjective health condition, showed statistically significant difference. The proportion of the elderly who have suicide thoughts was influenced when subjects were female and higher educational background, lower subjective health condition, COPD(Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and diabetes mellitus, showed statistically significant difference. We knew that the relationship between diseases and depression in the elderly influenced on the depression about most of the diseases. Particularly, Depression and suicide had a high correlation. The results suggest that it should be necessary to systematic management of diseases in the depression treatment of the Elderly in Korea.

• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.649-671
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to identify the meaning of performance experienced in the process of practicing at the elderly suicide prevention center. Therefore, the actual results perceived from the subjective viewpoints of the chiefs, staff and service users from the public institutions, which offer the elderly suicide prevention services were examined. The results classified the service provider's view, service users view and multi-dimensional view. The research method is a case study of qualitative research method. The results of the study found that the analysis commonly perceived from the perspectives of both the chiefs and staff from the public institutions offering elderly suicide prevention service were 'the perception of structural obstacles during the process of practicing the services and focused on the achievement of experiencing changes in the service users and the community'. On the other hand, the analysis from the perspective of the service users turned out to be 'focusing on changes in the users'internal perception according to service experiences'. The meaning and essence of the analytical results perceived from each perspective are summarized as follows. First, the analytical results perceived of the chiefs of public institutions offering elderly suicide prevention service were 'the process in which the identification of the institution is rediscovered through the service'. Second, the analytical results perceived by the staff from the institution were 'being acknowledged in the community and organization while experiencing changes in the service users in the process of struggling to survive in such community and organization'. Third, the analytical results perceived by the service users were 'holding on to the lifeline at the edge of a precipice'. Based on the results, political and practical implications of elderly suicide prevention service were discussed.