A study on adolescent suicide ideation in South Korea

One of the causes for adolescents' mortality in Korea for the last 20 years was suicide. What is the most effective way to prevent adolescent suicide? What are the significant and urgent topics that must be studied to prevent adolescent suicide? By looking closely at adolescents' perceptions and experiences of suicide ideation, I expect that I could find better ways to save the students from committing suicide. I used the revision of the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (Reynolds, 1985). 60 respondents participated in this survey spontaneously. Through this research, the biggest thing I realized was that depression and suicide ideation are strongly related. Students felt suicide ideation for the situation itself (37%), but there were more students who wanted to commit suicide from suffering of depression (56%). 26% of students stated that the duration of feeling depression was long before they felt the urge to commit suicide. Thus, we can prevent adolescent suicide if family members, friends and teachers see their depression earlier. It means that we can help the students from the depression stage before they enter suicide ideation stage. Secondly, the reasons of suicide ideation were 'home problems' (30%), 'peer relationship problems' (26%), and 'academic problems' (22%). It reveals that our suicide ideation comes from social relationship. Third, most students relied on their close friends (50%), not teachers to solve the problems. What they needed was conversation with friends and consolation from friends (48%). Seeing these results, students thought that friends would understand their pain and worries since friends might have similar problems and understand better. Fourth, 63% of the students did not request help. They said that they did not confess since they were worried about peoples' reaction (47%). 24% of students said they were shy or scared to tell anyone. Finally, 59% of respondents said they need special activities or programs to solve suicide ideation problems. I suggest that the following are things that are needed for students feeling suicide ideation: 1) consultation from an expert, 2) a place to comfortably let out their worries, 3) a community where they can share their worries and overcome them together. (C) 2015 The authors Published by Elsevier Ltd.