Related Factors of Suicidal Ideation among North Korean Refugee Youth in South Korea

Subin Park, Soo Jung Rim and Jin Yong Jun
Additional contact information
Subin Park: Department of Research Planning, Mental Health Research Institute, National Center for Mental Health, Seoul 04933, Korea
Soo Jung Rim: Department of Research Planning, Mental Health Research Institute, National Center for Mental Health, Seoul 04933, Korea
Jin Yong Jun: Department of Psychiatry, National Center for Mental Health, Seoul 04933, Korea

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-8

Abstract: This study investigated the factors associated with suicidal ideation among 174 North Korean refugees (aged 13–27 years) residing in South Korea. Specifically, we compared sociodemographic, familial, social, and psychological characteristics between participants with and without suicidal ideation. Twenty-nine refugees (16.7%) had exhibited suicidal ideation in the past 12 months. These refugees had significantly lower levels of familial cohesion ( U = 1459.0; p < 0.001), self-esteem ( U = 1032.0; p < 0.001), and resilience ( U = 1190.0; p < 0.001), as well as higher levels of expressional suppression ( U = 1202.5; p < 0.001) and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms ( U = 1303.0; p = 0.001), (with Cohen’s d > 0.5), compared to those without suicidal ideation. A multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the level of emotional suppression and familial cohesion were significantly associated with suicidal ideation, after controlling for the other variables. Familial and individual interventions, particularly those focused on encouraging emotional expression and familial cohesion, will be useful for North Korean refugee youth, who have a high risk of suicide.

Keywords: refugee; adolescent; risk factor; protective factor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/8/1694/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/8/1694/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:8:p:1694-:d:162740

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().