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A Study on the Determinants of Suicide Attempts among the Elderly Living Alone: Focused on Seniors in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province

독거노인 자살시도 영향요인에 관한 연구: 서울 및 경기지역 노인을 중심으로

  • Kwon, Oh-Gyun (Department of Social Welfare, Jangan University)
  • Received : 2014.07.15
  • Accepted : 2014.10.13
  • Published : 2014.10.31

Abstract

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.

Keywords

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  1. Physical, Psychological, and Social Risk Factors Affecting Suicidal Ideation among the Elderly vol.54, pp.4, 2015, https://doi.org/10.4306/jknpa.2015.54.4.459