Factors Affecting Suicide Method Lethality Among Suicide Attempters in the Korea National Suicide Survey

Abstract

This is the first national survey study in South Korea investigating the relationship between suicide lethality and the clinical information of suicide attempters. An interview questionnaire was used to assess their sociodemographic factors, medical and psychiatric information, and two suicide scales, the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale and the Suicide Intent Scale. Suicide methods were categorized as low and high lethality; low lethality covered drug overdose or self-cutting behavior, and high lethality covered all other methods. High and low lethality suicide method groups were significantly different in demographic, medical, and psychiatric factors. The two scale score distributions differed significantly across two groups, and the difference was also valid for the subcategory analyses of the Suicide Intent Scale. Multiple factors such as older age, male sex, no previous psychiatric history, and previous suicide attempt, as well as high suicide intent by means of suicide scale, affect selection of suicide method of high lethality.

The Moderating Effects of Accurate Expectations of Lethality in the Relationships between Suicide Intent and Medical Lethality on Suicide Attempts

“…In the present study, the proportion of subjects aged above 66 years increasing as the level of medical lethality increased. And, suicide attempters with high medical lethality reported poorer socioenvironmental conditions, consistent with the findings of previous studies [9][10][11]. In our results, a minimal association between the degree of suicide intent and the level of medical lethality was found.…”

Lethality-Associated Factors in Deliberate Self-Poisoning

“…Regarding the expression of suicidal intent, our study's findings are consistent with a study by Yeum et al [18], who demonstrated a tendency to choose a high lethality method when expressing suicide intention attempts. Our results showed that the proportion of expression of suicidal intent was significantly higher in the high lethality group.…”

Correlates of Suicidal Ideation During Pregnancy and Postpartum Among Women Living with HIV in Rural South Africa

“…Worldwide, risk factors for suicidal ideation during pregnancy and post-partum in women include lower educational attainment [15], depression [15, 19–21], younger age [19, 21], multiparousity [15, 20], and being unmarried [15, 19, 21]. In addition, characteristics of perinatal suicidality may differ from non-perinatal suicidality, and perinatal women who plan, attempt, or complete suicide are more likely than non-perinatal women to choose violent methods [13, 16, 19], suggesting greater intent [22–24]. These differences highlight the importance of understanding suicidality during this period.…”