• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.143-149
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• 2009

Purpose: Suicide attempts are known to be influenced by mass media reports. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of mass media reporting celebrity suicides on an increase of intentional carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and suicide attempts. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the consecutive patients who presented with suicide attempts to the Emergency Department of Ajou University Hospital during a 24 month period. We obtained the demographic data, any past history of suicide attempt and the methods of suicide attempts from the medical records of the suicide attempters. Time series analysis was conducted for evaluating the influence of mass media reporting of celebrity suicide on the suicide rates. Results: We finally enrolled 770 patients during the study period. The total number of suicide attempts by CO poisoning was 18 and the average number of suicide attempts by CO was $0.33{\pm}0.73$ per week. All of the suicide attempts by CO poisoning occurred after a celebrity committed suicide using CO from burning charcoal. Conclusion: This study showed that celebrity suicide by CO poisoning resulted in the Werther effect, which made the rate of intended CO poisoning increase, and the study provided further evidence for the need to actively restrain mass media reporting of suicide to decrease the Werther effect.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of parent-adolescent communication and depression on suicide ideation in the adolescent population. Method: The participants for this study were 391 students from two middle schools, one located in Seoul and one in Kyung-gi do Province. A self-report survey was used for data collection, which was carried out from February 8 to 14, 2006. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 11.0 Program. Results: The average score for father-adolescent communication was 61.70, and for mother-adolescent communication, 64.04. The average score for depression was 16.01, and for suicide ideation, 8.69. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between suicide ideation and depression. There was a statistically significant reverse correlation between suicide ideation and mother-adolescent communication, and between suicide ideation and father-adolescent communication. Mother-adolescent communication and depression account for 46.4% of variance in suicide ideation of adolescents. Conclusion: According to the results, programs designed to improve parent-adolescent communication and decrease depression should be developed and put into practice to decrease the rate of suicide ideation in adolescents in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2021

Purpose: This study was conducted to analyze the social factors influencing the 'authenticity of suicidal ideation' based post-suicidal care programs in emergency departments (EDs). Methods: This retrospective study was an analysis using the data of patients who had attempted suicide and visited the ED in tertiary urban hospitals from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2018. The variables examined included gender, age, history of previous psychiatric disease, suicide method, and the number of previous attempts. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify factors influencing the registration rate for the community-based post-suicide care program. Results: Overall,1,460 suicides were analyzed, 177 (1.16%) showed a high authenticity of suicide. The social factors influencing the authenticity of suicide intent were the unmarried status of men and women, joblessness, history of mental illnesses, more than two previous suicide attempts, the influence of alcohol, and an attempt to commit suicide after midnight more specifically between 24:00 to 6:00 hours in the morning (p<.05). The factors influencing the severity of the condition of high authenticity suicide patients were low Glasgow coma scores (12 points or less), lactate levels, and oxygen saturation observed in the patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit for treatment and died (p<.05). Conclusion: The need for evidence-based preventive measures and early assessment tools at the emergency medicine level is emphasized to reduce the rate of suicide attempts. If the results of this study are used in the management of suicide prevention, the evaluation of the authenticity of suicide intent will be more likely to be made at the emergency medicine level, allowing the severity to be assessed earlier.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.157-165
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• 2016

Objectives There were previous studies which indicated that attitude toward suicide is able to influence the suicide outcome in both individual and group levels. In regard to the highest suicide rate in Korea, our study aims to explore the influence that attitude toward suicide has on suicide by comparing the national attitude towards suicide with a representative sample of the general population. Methods The target population was 20- to 59-year-old adults from South Korea, Japan, and the United States. The panel data were divided according to gender, age, and residential area of individuals, and an email with a hyperlink to our web survey was sent to the randomly selected participants in each stratum. To measure the perceptual differences about suicide in different cultures, this study adopted the Attitudes Toward Suicide questionnaire. Results A total of 2247 subjects in three countries participated in this study. According to results from factor analysis, there were different structure of factors and included items within factors in the three countries : five factors with nineteen items in South Korea, five factors with nineteen items in the United States, and five factors with twenty-five items in Japan. With regard to permissive attitude toward suicide, the mean value of permissiveness was not significantly different among countries, but permissiveness according to education level, gender, and marital status was different in each country. Conclusions This study is the first nationwide comparative study about attitude toward suicide with a representative sample. Our findings suggest that permissive attitude toward suicide influence the suicide phenomenon in each country ; however, its impact is not a mean score of permissiveness, but the detailed difference by various demographics.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.427-435
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• 2016

Any comparative study has not been done between Korea and a certain country about the social economic factors of elderly suicide rates, even though there has been comparative studies among several nations. Therefore, this study is going to reveal how the macro-social economic factors are related to elderly suicide rates based on Korea and the United States, which show great gap of elderly suicide rate and have completely different aspect of increasing and decreasing rate of elderly suicide, as members of OECD. For this, trend analysis has been done between elderly suicide rates of both Korea and the United States for the past twenty years(1990-2009) and social economic factors, and correlation analysis also has been done at the same time. After all, this study is going to suggest policy implications for the prevention of elderly suicide in our society based on the results of the analysis.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2016

Purpose: Increase in suicide rate for senior citizens which has become widespread in our society today. It is not a normal social phenomenon and is beyond the danger level. The contents of this study include Korean senior citizens' suicide related risk factors and warning signs, and the development of a simple Geriatric Suicide Risk Scale. Methods: This study is Methodological Research to verify reliability and validity of the Geriatric Suicide Risk Scale according to the tool development process suggested by Devellis (2012). Results: For predictive validity assessment, high suicide screening accuracy was showed with an Area under the ROC curve (AUC) of .93. For the optimal cutoff point of 11, sensitivity was 93.9%, and specificity, 75.7% which are excellence levels. Cross validity for assessment of generalization possibility showed the Area under the ROC curve (AUC) as .82 and in case of a cutoff point of 11, sensitivity was 73.7%, and specificity, 65.9%. Conclusion: When it comes to practical nursing, it is significant that the Korean Geriatric Suicide Risk Scale has high reliability and validity through adequate tool development and the tool assessment step to select degree of suicide risk of senior citizens. Also, it can be easily applied and does not take a long time to administer. Further, it can be used by health care personnel or the general public.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 2013

Objectives: Rural-urban differences in suicide have been observed in many settings. However, there has been little research addressing what factors can explain these differences. The purpose of this study was to analyze which compositional factors and contextual factors in local areas might be related to local suicide. Methods: The study design was cross-sectional. The data for 251 primary local governments on their age-standardized suicide mortality and their predefined indicators of compositional factors and contextual factors were obtained from Korean Statistical Information Service as of year 2010. Bivariate analysis including one-way ANOVA and chi-square test were used to identify the differences in local features by area type. Seven poisson regression models for each of total, males, and females were used to analyze which compositional and contextual factors were related to suicide. Results: There were differences in suicide between gu and goon in total, male, and female groups. For total, compositional factors including divorce and smoking rate, and contextual factors including financial independency, water and waterwaste coverage, and number of wastewater discharge factories were found to explain the urban-rural differences. Conclusions: This study provided some evidence that contextual factors at the local level as well as compositional factors are useful for predicting local suicide mortality.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.291-302
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• 2020

Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between oral health and suicide attempts in adults aged 19 years or older using the 7^th Korea National Health and Examination Survey (KHANES, 2016-2018). Methods: Of the 24,269 participants in the 7^th KHANES (2016-2018), 7,261 adults aged 19 years or older who had an oral health examination were selected. Complex samples crosstabulation (χ²-test) was performed to determine the rate of suicide ideation by general characteristics. Complex samples logistic regression was performed to ascertain the effects of oral health on suicide attempts. Results: Participants with gingivitis were 1.7 times more likely to receive mental health counseling (p<0.05) and 1.6 times more likely to attempt suicide (p<0.05). Conclusions: Oral health is significantly associated with suicide attempts in adults aged 19 years or older, and this emphasizes the importance of oral health management as an intervention for preventing suicide and improving the health of adults.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.310-314
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• 2007

In these days we can often see examples of suicide. Nowaday suicide becomes a serious social problem in Korean Society. Suicide rate is rapidly increasing. The number of suicides increase continuously from 3,157 in 1990 to 10,688 in 2006. And the annual suicide rate rapidly went up in 1996 and hit the highest in 2005. Furthermore the level of ssuicide which is of ten leading causes of death is rising steadily. In 2006, suicide rate becomes the 2nd level among all ccountries in OECD.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the independent factors associated with the registration rate for the community-based post suicidal care program in the emergency department (ED). Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted between January and September 2015 at the academic ED in the tertiary urban hospital. The variables examined included gender, age, address, type of insurance, history of previous psychiatric disease, suicide methods, number of previous attempts, CES-D (The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale), and disposition at ED. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were conducted to identify factors affecting the registration rate for the community-based post suicidal care program. Results: Overall, 331 suicides were investigated, 61 (18.4%) of which were registered in the post-suicide care program. Factors such as a intervention by psychiatric physician (OR: 3.287, 95%; CI: 1.207-9.624) and levels of depression by CES-D score of 16-24 (OR: 3.635; CI: 1.055-12.526) were significantly correlated with registration for the program. Conclusion: The registration rate for the community-based post suicidal care program was influenced by frequent intervention by a psychiatric physician and levels of depression by CES-D score of 16-24.