Talk:Suicide in South Korea

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jamesyjkim.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Causes
Does anybody know if culture might have an influence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.171.233.104 (talk) 04:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Suicide in South Korea
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Suicide in South Korea's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.The expanded contribution has added great additional scope to the topic! Additionally, it is clear the information is being drawn from a variety of sources. Very comprehensive.

Reference named "Times": From Daul Kim:  From Suicide in Japan:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 02:42, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

higher suicide rate
Currently South Korea has higher suicide rate than Hungary or Slovenia according to other Wikipedia pages —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.134.163.209 (talk) 16:57, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Revisions for Suicide in South Korea
I want to add that the unsigned comment brings up a valid point. According to WHO, South Korea ranks third on the list of countries with high suicide rates, following Guyana and North Korea. Thus, South Korea has higher suicide rate than Hungary or Slovenia.

As for the article overall, I believe I am going to re-categorize the article and even delete some sections. I am planning to delete the “Trend” section of the article and replace it with a “Statistics” section. There is no need for a “Trend” section if numbers and graphs can speak for themselves of the changing rates of suicidal rates in South Korea. Also, since I am planning to write paragraphs that summarize the patterns of the statistics in the section, a separate section to explain the trend would be too redundant. I will divide the “Statistics” into separate subsections by age, gender, socioeconomics, and regions. Each subsection will include its respective statistics to these groups, which will make the “Victim” section of the current article unnecessary. Thus, I plan to remove that section as well. Following the Statistic section, I want to add a “method” section, which mostly will be different ways of people committing suicide in Korea.

With regards to the “Causes” section, I hope to expand the section extensively, for the reasons mentioned above. I believe this section should hold huge significance and weight in the article, not only because there are multiple layers to the issue, but also it helps people to realize what they can do to tackle the roots of the problem. Thus, I expect to have multiple subsections: culture, education, family life, economy, and socioeconomic inequalities. Each will be backed up with substantial scholarly articles.

I also hope to lengthen the “Response” section, because it holds the same, if not more, significance in terms of understanding the issue just as much as “Causes” section does. I will add a “Government Intervention” subsection and “Activist Movement” subsection.

After the “Response” section, I will add “Consequences” section, which will address the effects of the high suicidal rate. Surprisingly, scholarly articles for the section are difficult to find. However, because these are important aspects to be addressed to evaluate the current state of the social issue, I am set on including these sections.

I would finish the article off with more links added to the “See Also” section. I will add any links that relates to the new sections that I am adding. Links such as “Education in South Korea”, “Culture of South Korea”, and even “List of Countries by Suicide Rate” would be a good addition to the list. This way I can increase traffic in other articles that relate to the social issue.

I will be working on this page as a major assignment for my class. This class is an introduction class to a minor in Rice University called Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. Because it is my first time writing an article for Wikipedia, I would greatly appreciate any kind of advice and recommendations on my plan and content. I especially would be interested in any recommendations regarding my sources for the “Consequences” section, since I am having a difficult time with finding scholarly articles for that section. Lindaticket ⚡ 21:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Lindaticket, I'll try to fix the article since somebody undid most of your edits it seems. &#9780; Jaewon &#91;Talk&#93; 16:01, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Comments on recent edits
The recent edits to this page have added great scope to the topic! Additionally, it is clear the information is being drawn from a variety of sources, making the article very comprehensive. This article also has great NPOV. I have two suggestions to make the article even better, 1) add direct citations for all assertions and 2) fix minor grammatical errors. Throughout the article there are some assertions made without direct source attributions, for example “Moreover, parents offer bribes to teachers to look preferably on their children, as the statistics show that 27% of teachers have accepted bribes. With the social pressure to do well in the test upon students, they choose the option of suicide”. This statement is not directly attributed to a source and doing so would strengthen this claim. Grammatical errors in the article are similarly minor and easily fixed! Overall great edits! MCRU (talk) 23:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Nice article! I added alcohol abuse to your mental illness section, and referenced k-pop stars as the drivers of societal body image obsession. I also mentioned that eating disorders are on the rise. Fromstrengthcamesweetness (talk) 02:53, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Comments on recent edits
This article has improved greatly since you first began working on it. You have added a lot of information that is well supported by several sources. The organization is excellent and very easy to follow, and your point of view is very neutral. The article is very straightforward and provides a great summary of the issue. There are a few places that you appear to be making an argument, such as "According to Durkheim, economic downfall would disturb the social standing of an individual, meaning that the individual’s demands and expectations would no longer be met. Thus, the person who cannot readjust to the deprived social order caused by economic downfall is more likely to commit suicide." If you are able to back up this argument with a scholarly source, that would help a lot. There are also some places, like your introduction and Effects sections, where more frequent citing would be useful. There are also some places where your fluency and grammar could improve. This article is looking really great! 128.42.64.36 (talk) 00:01, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Final Revision
I took all of the advices on the talk page and revised my sentence flow and syntax in some sections. I also added more citations to the introductory paragraph and "Response" section. Finally, I added images on some sections. I would appreciate to have my captions revised, because I am not very familiar with captions. I want to appreciate all of feedbacks and revisions for the article so far. I plan to update the information on certain rankings and statistics in the future.

"Age" section needs fixing
The age section, probably done in good faith to place a comparative standard, contrasts the South Korean suicide rate among different age groups with the United Kingdom. This is not OK because it is UK-centric, implying that most viewers of Wikipedia are British. This needs to be fixed. --Mr. Guye (talk) 21:14, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Comments on your article

Comments on your article
The article covers the topic very well. I think you hit on the most important factors relating to your topic like the statistics, methods, cause, and response. The way you structured your article was efficient and concise. I think your research was very well done and it shows that you put a lot of time and effort into finding sources that were credible and informative. Adding the “Notable Cases” section was a very nice addition to your article as well; it gave me (the reader) a real life perspective of the problem.

Overall, I would recommend you make some minor considerations. I made a list of comments as I read your article: “Elderly” is repeated a lot, maybe rephrase so that you don’t have to keep saying the word. Also, you add the definition of what you consider “elderly” towards the middle of your article. I would mention that definition at the beginning. Maybe don’t mention specifics about age in the intro (you already have a section for age) Don’t hyperlink elderly, I think you should focus on hyperlinking important terms or organization names to a Wikipedia article. We don’t need to be taken to a Wikipedia article to see a definition of elderly. You mention college and school students having a higher suicide rate but then you say elderly have the highest? This paragraph sounded a little contradictory to me. Hyperlink RRRS or maybe explain it more because I am still not quite sure how the scale/system works What is the reason for the increase in the women suicide stats? Education does not have to be hyperlinked Don’t really understand the last few sentences of your Methods section, maybe reword? For Notable Cases I would focuses on a couple cases and maybe say how it affected the public/how the public perceives these notable cases you talk about celebrity suicides and how it impacts society in the paragraph below so maybe choose 1 or 2 notable celebrity cases?

I think I would focus on working on the cases section and making sure the reader is not overwhelmed with statistics with no background to them. For the cases section, like I mentioned above, I think you should focus on 2 or 3 max and explain why they were significant to the public. You talk about celebrity suicides and how they impact people so maybe show the reader a case or two about a celebrity so you can tie it to the next section. Although the cases are interesting, it sounds like a list of examples with no story.

Also, although statistics are important, especially for your topic, make sure you explain them or give some background. Sometimes readers who are not familiar with the topic get overwhelmed by the numbers and don’t really understand what they mean if they aren’t given context/background.

Your article was very structured, it flowed very well from beginning to end and it is something I hope I can achieve with my article as well.

Smasseroli (talk) 23:08, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

little inconsistency
the article is very good, but there is just a small point : it says south Korea has the second highest suicide rate according to WHO, quoting 2015 sources, but the page listing the WHO 2015 survey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate) lists south Korea as tenth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.128.40 (talk) 09:22, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Second highest among the OECD. Tenth highest in the world. - 211.245.255.135 (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Mental illness section
I am thinking of turning this section into its own article, as I think mental illness is not simply a subset of suicide (if anything, it is the other way around.) I am hoping to include information on depression and other mental health issues in addition to stigma and suicide as discussed here. For some sources I might use for this article, see my user page! Mhvla (talk) 21:09, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Proposed bibliography, with annotations, for potential new article
I plan on linking to this article as the main article under "Suicide" in my proposed new article, "Mental health in South Korea." I won't be relocating or duplicating any information from this page, but will rather be redirecting here from the new article I plan on writing.

Boyd, Jennifer E., Emerald P. Adler, Poorni G. Otilingam, and Townley Peters. "Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness (ISMI) Scale: A Multinational Review." Comprehensive Psychiatry 55.1 (2014): n. pag. Web.

This journal article compares numerical data of internalized mental illness stigma in 55 countries including South Korea. This is relevant to the proposed “societal perceptions of mental illness” section of my proposed article as it gives quantitative analysis of mental illness stigma in Korea.

Chang, S.M., Hong, JP. & Cho, M.J. “Economic burden of depression in South Korea.” Social Psychiatry Psychiatry Epidemiology 47: 683 (2012). doi:10.1007/s00127-011-0382-8.

This journal article looks at the effect of stigma and insufficient mental healthcare on the economy in the context of prevalent depression. I will use this information in the proposed “Depression” subsection.

Cho, Maeng Je et al. “Lifetime and 12-Month Prevalence of DSM-IV Psychiatric Disorders among Korean adults.” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 195:3 (2007). doi: 10.1097/01.nmd.0000243826.40732.45.

This journal article provides statistics for rates of different mental disorders in the South Korean population. I will use this information in the proposed “Other mental illnesses” subsection to shine a light on less-researched, but still important, conditions such as anxiety disorders.

Chou, S. Patricia et al. “Alcohol Use Disorders, Nicotine Dependence, and Co Occurring Mood and Anxiety Disorders in the United States and South Korea—A Cross-National Comparison.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 36: 654–662 (2012). doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2011.01639.x.

This journal article looks at the relationship between substance use disorders and mood and anxiety disorders, and compares their prevalence between the US and South Korea. This article is also relevant to my “Other mental illnesses” subsection.

Ha, JH, SY Kim, SC Bae, and S. Bae. "Depression and Internet Addiction in Adolescents." Psychopathology 40 (2007).

Specific to the adolescent demographic, this journal article looks at the relationship between internet addiction, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its contents are relevant to the “Other mental illnesses” and “Mental illness in adolescents” subsections.

Jang, Yuri, Giyeon Kim, Lianne Hansen, and David A. Chiriboga. "Attitudes of Older Korean Americans Toward Mental Health Services." Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 55:4 (2007).

This journal article evaluates perceptions of mental illness by South Korean’s elderly population, one with a particularly high rate of mental illness and suicide. It is relevant to my proposed “Societal perceptions of mental illness” section and “Mental illness in the elderly” subsection.

Kahng, Sang Kyoung and Kim, Hyemee. “A Developmental Overview of the Mental Health System in South Korea.” Social Work in Public Health 25, 2 (2010). 158-175. doi: 10.1080/19371910903070408.

This journal article discusses the history of mental healthcare infrastructure and policy in South Korea, and provides a lot of necessary information to my proposed “History” section.

Kim, Agnus M. “Why do psychiatric patients in Korea stay longer in hospital?” International Journal of Mental Health Systems 11:2 (2017). doi:10.1186/s13033- 016-0110-6.

This journal article explores the phenomenon of increasing mental hospital stays in South Korea, particularly related to policy and societal views. It is relevant to my proposed “Mental healthcare” section.

Kim, Woo Jung, Yoon Joo Song, and Hyun Sook Ryu. "Internalized Stigma and Its Psychosocial Correlates in Korean Patients with Serious Mental Illness." Psychiatry Research 225.3 (2015): 433-39. Web.

Similarly to the piece by Boyd et al., this journal article is relevant to my proposed “Societal perceptions of mental illness” section due to its analysis of internalized stigma and its impact on the pervasiveness of mental illness.

Kwon, Jin-Won, Heeran Chun, and Sung-il Cho. “A closer look at the increase in suicide rates in South Korea from 1986-2005.” BMC Public Health 9:72 (2009). doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-9-72.

This journal article examines the cause for the upward trend in suicides in South Korea over a 19-year period and is relevant to my proposed “Suicide” section.

McDonald, Mark. “Stressed and Depressed, Koreans Avoid Therapy.” New York Times, 6 July 2011.

This article in the New York Times sheds a special light on cultural aspects of mental health in South Korea, particularly relating to stigma and treatment methods. Thus, it is relevant to the proposed “Societal perceptions of mental illness” and “Mental healthcare” sections.

Min, Sung-kil and Yeo, In-sok. “Mental Health in Korea: Past and Present.” Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific (2017). 79-92. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4899- 7999-5_5.

This journal article compares historical and modern mental healthcare systems in South Korea. It is relevant to my proposed “History” section.

OECD. “Korea’s increase in suicides and psychiatric bed numbers is worrying, says OECD.” 2011. https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/MMHC- Country-Press-Note-Korea.pdf.

This article by the OECD examines the upward trend in suicides and mental health institutionalizations in South Korea, particularly in comparison with other OECD countries, of which South Korea has by far the highest suicide rate. It’s information is particularly relevant to my proposed section on “Suicide.”

Ohayon, Maurice, and Seung-Chul Hong. "Prevalence of Insomnia and Associated Factors in South Korea." Journal of Psychosomatic Research 53.1 (2002): 593-600. Web.

This journal article looks at the causes and rates of insomnia in South Korea and is relevant to the proposed “Other mental illnesses” subsection, where I will briefly discuss insomnia and its relation to other mental health conditions.

Ohayon, Maurice M., and Seung-Chul Hong. "Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder in the General Population of South Korea." Journal of Psychiatric Research 40.1 (2006): 30-36. Web.

Particularly relevant to my proposed section “Depression,” this journal article examines demographic characteristics and other aspects of depressive disorders throughout South Korea. It is also therefore relevant to my “Demographics of mental illness” subsection.

Research and Information Services. “RRT Research Response.” Refugee Research Tribunal (2009). np. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4b6fe2770.pdf.

This paper by the Australian Refugee Research Tribunal answers four questions related to the access and quality of South Korean mental healthcare, including stigma, and thus is relevant to both my proposed “Mental healthcare” and “Societal perceptions of mental illness” sections.

Roh, Sungwon et al. “Mental health services and R&D in South Korea.” International Journal of Mental Health Systems 10, 45 (2016). doi: 10.1186/s13033-016-0077-3.

This journal article examines the details and quality of mental healthcare infrastructure in South Korea and research and development related to its improvement. It is relevant to the “Mental healthcare” section.

Park, Hyun Sook, Karen G. Schepp, Eun Hee Jang, and Hyun Young Koo. "Predictors of Suicidal Ideation Among High School Students by Gender in South Korea." Journal of School Health 76:5 (2006).

Relevant to my proposed “Suicide” section, this journal article discusses demographic characteristics that are related to adolescent suicide ideation in South Korea.

Park, Joon Hyuk, and Ki Woong Kim. "A Nationwide Survey on the Prevalence and Risk Factors of Late Life Depression in South Korea." Journal of Affective Disorders 138:1-2 (2002).

Specific to the elderly population, this journal article examines characteristics and experiences related to late-life depression. I plan to apply it to my proposed “Mental illness in the elderly” subsection.

Park, Soo Kyung, Jae Yop Kim, and Choon Bum Cho. "Prevalence of Internet Addiction and Correlations with Family Factors among South Korean Adolescents." Adolescence 43:172 (2008).

This journal article examines the recent phenomenon of internet addiction among youths in South Korea, including demographic and other factors that are associated with the addiction. It is relevant to the proposed “Internet addiction” subsection.

Pescosolido, Bernice A., Tait R. Medina, Jack K. Martin, and J. Scott Long. "The “Backbone” of Stigma: Identifying the Global Core of Public Prejudice Associated With Mental Illness." American Journal of Public Health 103:5 (2013).

Relevant to my proposed section “Societal perceptions on mental illness,” this journal article looks at the reasons behind social stigma of mental illness in South Korea and its repurcussions.

World Health Organization. “WHO-AIMS Report on Mental Health in Republic of Korea.” WHO Collaborating Center for Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Community Mental Health in Korea (2006). http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/korea_who_aims_report.pdf? ua=1.

This analytical piece by the WHO dissects the mental healthcare infrastructure in South Korea, from policy to expenditure to division of bed usage by citizens. It is most relevant to my proposed “Mental healthcare” section.

Mhvla (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

The Media's response
With the amount of suicides that happen in Korea, there must be some sort of response from the media. Maybe adding that could make your article stronger. Did any celebrities make any statements about this? Was there any thing a celebrity did that lowkey talked about these issues?

Overall, the article is really good. 8.41.197.223 (talk) 19:27, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Reporting on celebrity suicides
When there is a note in the article about copycat suicides after the deaths of celebrities and the dissemination of details in the media being linked to the copycat phenomemenon, there is no reason why specific details of means, method, etc. of a particular celebrity suicide should be included in this article.

I am making this edit with respect to the death of Kpop singer Kim Jonghyun. The details of his method of suicide or the location of his suicide are not encyclopaedic information pertinent to this article. Note that other celebrity suicides included in the article are not described in this amount of detail. See: WP:NOTNP

I would appreciate full discussion of this topic on this page before any edit is reverted. 124.148.147.230 (talk) 06:48, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Elderly suicide rate
The second paragraph in the article is about the high rate of suicide among the elderly, but the first figure shows that the rate of suicide dramatically decreases after age 40. The rate of suicide among the elderly compared to other countries should be clarified, and a caveat should be added that the majority of suicides are ages 20-30.

- 211.245.255.135 (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2012 Q4 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:26, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

OECD comparison unreadable
The second picture, with the comparison against other OECD members does not have proper labelling to be readable. Notably, there is no indication of what the y-axis represents neither in the picture not the text, both of which should be present. It also does not reference any sources for the data nor the graph. I'm of the opinion it should be removed, but I don't feel confident enough to do it myself without bringing it up here first. 188.113.80.103 (talk) 09:24, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I added an explanation "per 100 000 persons" and a source. I also added a source to "c:File:OECD-2022-suicide.jpg".―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)