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Background: Previous studies have investigated the association between suicide and internet search volumes of terms related to suicide or self-harm. However, the results varied by people's age, period, and country, and no study has exclusively investigated suicide or self-harm rates among adolescents., Objective: This study aims to determine the association between the internet search volumes of terms related to suicide/self-harm and the number of suicides among South Korean adolescents. We investigated gender differences in this association and the time lag between the internet search volumes of the terms and the connected suicide deaths., Methods: We selected 26 search terms related to suicide and self-harm among South Korean adolescents, and the search volumes of these terms for adolescents aged 13-18 years were obtained from the leading internet search engine in South Korea (Naver Datalab). A data set was constructed by combining data from Naver Datalab and the number of suicide deaths of adolescents on a daily basis from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2020. Spearman rank correlation and multivariate Poisson regression analyses were performed to identify the association between the search volumes of the terms and the suicide deaths during that period. The time lag between suicide death and the increasing trend in the search volumes of the related terms was estimated from the cross-correlation coefficients., Results: Significant correlations were observed within the search volumes of the 26 terms related to suicide/self-harm. The internet search volumes of several terms were associated with the number of suicide deaths among South Korean adolescents, and this association differed by gender. The search volume for "dropout" showed a statistically significant correlation with the number of suicides in all adolescent population groups. The correlation between the internet search volume for "dropout" and the connected suicide deaths was the strongest for a time lag of 0 days. In females, self-harm and academic score showed significant associations with suicide deaths, but academic score showed a negative correlation, and the time lags with the strongest correlations were 0 and -11 days, respectively. In the total population, self-harm and suicide method were associated with the number of suicides, and the time lags with the strongest correlations were +7 and 0 days, respectively., Conclusions: This study identifies a correlation between suicides and internet search volumes related to suicide/self-harm among South Korean adolescents, but the relatively weak correlation (incidence rate ratio 0.990-1.068) should be interpreted with caution., (©Won-Seok Choi, Junhee Han, Hyun Ju Hong. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 20.04.2023.)

Background: This study aims to evaluate suicidal ideation, depression, and insomnia among parent survivors of adolescents who died by suicide and their relevant risk factors using psychological autopsy results from South Korea., Methods: The participants were 42 parent survivors (10 fathers and 32 mothers) of 35 adolescents who died by suicide. We used the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Korean version of the Insomnia Severity Index to evaluate the mental health of the bereaved parents. We used the Korean Psychological Autopsy Checklist for Adolescents, the Korean Beck Depression Inventory, the Korean Version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-II, and the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime-Korean versions to evaluate the mental health of deceased adolescents before their deaths., Results: The results showed that many parent survivors of suicide had developed clinically significant suicidal ideation, depression, and insomnia (75.6%, 73.2%, and 42.9%, respectively). Furthermore, the higher the incidence of traumatic events experienced by the deceased adolescents, the higher the severity of depression and insomnia experienced by surviving parents., Conclusion: We should pay attention that parent survivors of suicide can suffer mental disorders after their offspring's death. In future studies, long-term follow-up studies with larger samples need to generalize our findings and clarify the causal relationship., Competing Interests: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (© 2023 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.)

A teacher as a suicide prevention gatekeeper has an important role in identifying suicide risks and warning signs in students. After a student's suicide, teachers in Korea have to write a student suicide case report based on their direct and indirect observations. In particular, the section 'characteristic of student suicide' of this report contains valuable information about the suicide; however, it is unstructured, and thus cannot be analyzed using conventional statistical methods. We aimed to identify the characteristics of observed Korean students, who have committed suicide, using text mining techniques as well as to improve our understanding of suicidal behaviors in the school contexts. Therefore, a series of text mining techniques: topic analysis, word correlation, and word frequency analysis, in three problem categories: health, school, and family problems, were used to analyze the characteristics of student suicides. Topic analysis showed that only 30% of the student suicide case reports identified problematic student characteristics related to suicide. Correlations between words showed that words in one problem category were often correlated with words in other problem categories. Frequency word analysis showed that the three problem categories varied across gender and school levels. These results provide interesting insights into the characteristics of suicides among Korean students and important implications for suicide intervention in the education field.

Objective: This study had two main goals: to examine the structure of co-occurring peer bullying experiences among adolescents in South Korea from the perspective of victims and to determine the effects of bullying on suicidal behavior, including suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, among adolescents., Method: This study used data gathered from 4,410 treatment-seeking adolescents at their initial visits to 31 local mental health centers in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The structure of peer bullying was examined using latent class analysis (LCA) to classify participants' relevant experiences. Then, a binomial logistic regression adjusted by propensity scores was conducted to identify relationships between experiences of being bullied and suicidal behaviors., Results: The LCA of experiences with bullying revealed two distinct classes of bullying: physical and non-physical. Adolescents who experienced physical bullying were 3.05 times more likely to attempt suicide than those who were not bullied. Victims of (non-physical) cyber bullying were 2.94 times more likely to attempt suicide than were those who were not bullied., Conclusions: Both physical and non-physical bullying were associated with suicide attempts, with similar effect sizes. Schools and mental health professionals should be more attentive than they currently are to non-physical bullying.

Background: In South Korea, the leading cause of youth death has been suicide for about 20 years. In this study, we conducted a multi-method psychological autopsy to identify the psychiatric diagnosis, developmental history, personality traits, family history, school life, warning signs of suicide, and risk factors related to suicide for the first time in Korea. Methods: This was a postmortem, retrospective, and descriptive study of 36 adolescents who died by suicide between August 2015 and July 2021 in South Korea. We obtained qualitative and quantitative data from the Korean Psychological Autopsy of Adolescent, conducted by the Suicide and School Mental Health Institute, the official student mental health policy-focused research institute of the Korean Ministry of Education. Results: The adolescents comprised equal percentage of girls and boys. Approximately half of the deaths (55.6%) occurred at home and most (72.2%) involved jumping from a height. Most of the adolescents (97.2%) had one major psychiatric disorder before death, with depressive disorder being the most prevalent (75%). They were at a high risk for internet addiction before death. The most common personality trait was avoidance (28.6%), followed by submissiveness (27.3%). Half of the parents reported that the adolescents were satisfied with their school life and the teachers observed that they had no behavioral problems. One year before death, seven (19.4%) adolescents injured themselves and five (13.9%) had attempted suicide. Most of the deceased (80.6%) had expressed suicide warning signs to their families within one year before death. Adolescents had a long experience of family-related adverse events. Conclusions: Most of the adolescents had mental health disorders and expressed suicidal intentions using verbal and nonverbal signs. However, it was challenging for families to recognize the risk signs because of adolescents' personality traits or a good school life. To prevent adolescent suicide, adolescents, parents, and teachers need to be educated to recognize signs of suicide warning signs and equipped to guide adolescents to appropriate care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SAs were more likely to involve a physical (32.8% in SAs, 15.3% in SCs, p = 0.009) or mental illness (32.8% in SAs, 17.7% in SCs, p = 0.032) than SCs. SAs involved more self-injurious behaviors (28.1% in SAs, 3.2% in SCs, p <0.001) and prior attempts (33.3% in SAs, 6.8% in SCs, p < 0.001) than SCs. [Extracted from the article]