Development of a suicide index model in general adolescents using the South Korea 2012\u20132016 national representative survey data

Jinhee Lee,Seongho Min,Ho Jang,Jongkoo Kim

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-38886-z

Abstract

Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents and a major public health concern. Here we developed a risk stratification model for adolescent suicide attempts using sociodemographic characteristics, risk behaviours and psychological variables. Participants were 247,222 subjects in the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBS). We developed a suicide index based on the suicide risk estimated in the generalized linear model and proposed the risk stratification model using the R language to measure the probability of suicide attempt among adolescents. Among the study population, the annual rate of suicide attempt was approximately 4%. The model provided good prediction for suicide attempt (AUC = 0.85). The important univariate risk factors for the outcome were dimensional measures of age, sex, breakfast consumption, experience of violence, sleep duration, perceived stress, feeling of sadness, current cigarette smoking, current alcohol drinking, perceived general health, perceived academic record, household economic status and living with biological or adoptive parents. Our suicide index model allowed the identification of adolescents who are at a high risk for suicide. This tool may promote the prevention of adolescent suicide and can be particularly useful in everyday settings where it is difficult to contact mental health professionals immediately.

Highlights

Adolescent suicide is a major public health issue and accounts for an estimated 6% of all causes of death among young people worldwide[1]
Overall combined effect of these risk factors needs to be considered in order for these to be applicable to the actual clinical setting or public health site
The present study proposed a risk stratification model for adolescent suicide attempts using community-based national representative samples to collect data, including sociodemographic variables, risk behaviours and psychological variables that are readily available in everyday life

Summary

Introduction

Adolescent suicide is a major public health issue and accounts for an estimated 6% of all causes of death among young people worldwide[1]. Suicide attempt is the strongest known clinical predictor of completed suicide[6] and is the main risk factor for continued suicidal behaviour and future death due to suicide in adolescents[7]. Considering the complex mechanism of suicide occurrence, the individual application of each risk factor alone may be biased or inaccurate to predict and manage the suicidal behaviours of patients in the real clinical setting. There is no predictive model for suicide attempt in adolescents and most of the previous studies on adolescent suicide attempt focused largely on psychiatric patients or biased samples. The present study proposed a risk stratification model for adolescent suicide attempts using community-based national representative samples to collect data, including sociodemographic variables, risk behaviours and psychological variables that are readily available in everyday life

Methods

Results

Conclusion