Citation

Park S, Rim SJ, Jun JY. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018; 15(8): e15081694.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, National Center for Mental Health, Seoul 04933, Korea. jjy826@naver.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph15081694

PMID

30096867

Abstract

This study investigated the factors associated with suicidal ideation among 174 North Korean refugees (aged 13⁻27 years) residing in South Korea. Specifically, we compared sociodemographic, familial, social, and psychological characteristics between participants with and without suicidal ideation. Twenty-nine refugees (16.7%) had exhibited suicidal ideation in the past 12 months. These refugees had significantly lower levels of familial cohesion (U = 1459.0; p < 0.001), self-esteem (U = 1032.0; p < 0.001), and resilience (U = 1190.0; p < 0.001), as well as higher levels of expressional suppression (U = 1202.5; p < 0.001) and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (U = 1303.0; p = 0.001), (with Cohen's d > 0.5), compared to those without suicidal ideation. A multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the level of emotional suppression and familial cohesion were significantly associated with suicidal ideation, after controlling for the other variables. Familial and individual interventions, particularly those focused on encouraging emotional expression and familial cohesion, will be useful for North Korean refugee youth, who have a high risk of suicide.

Language: en

Keywords

adolescent; protective factor; refugee; risk factor