Citation

Park MH, Kim TS, Yim HW, Jeong SH, Lee C, Lee CU, Kim JM, Jung SW, Lee MS, Jun TY. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 2010; 198(10): 748-754.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea; Clinical Research Center for Depression, Seoul, South Korea; Department of Preventive Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea; Department of Psychiatry, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, South Korea; Department of Psychiatry, Keimyung University, School of Medicine, Daegu, South Korea; and Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/NMD.0b013e3181f4aeac

PMID

20921866

Abstract

South Korea is a country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the suicide rate is still on the rise. The purpose of this study was to determine the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of suicide attempts and risk factors related to suicide attempts among depressed patients in South Korea. Among the 1183 participants, 21.4% had a history of a suicide attempt. When the severity of depression was controlled, the risk factors for patients who attempted suicide included younger age, experienced significant life events before 12 years of age, psychotic symptoms, and previous depressive episodes. The characteristics of attempted suicide in depressed patients in South Korea can be summarized as a high suicide attempt rate with no difference in the number of suicide attempts and lethality between males and females. This unique tendency is probably related to the sociodemographic and cultural characteristics of South Korea.

Language: en