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Suicide attempts among the elderly in East Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2017

Guk-Hee Suh  and
Lina Gega
Guk-Hee Suh*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Hallym University College of Medicine, Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital, Hwaseong-si, South Korea
Lina Gega*
Affiliation:
Mental Health and Addiction Research Group (MHARG), Department of Health Sciences & Hull York Medical School, University of York, Heslington, York, UK
*
Email: suhgh@chol.com
Email: lina.gega@york.ac.uk
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Extract

Among the one million suicide deaths worldwide each year, as many as 60% occur in Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) found higher suicide rates among the elderly in rapidly industrialized Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, compared to the corresponding rates of recently industrializing Asian countries like Vietnam and Sri Lanka (WHO, 2014). As a case in point, suicide rates in South Korea have been the highest in the world since 2003 and are rising especially among older people (Hong and Knapp, 2014). Suicide attempts and older age are strong predictors of completed suicide (Szanto et al., 2002; Simon et al., 2013) and, as such, are important in guiding our efforts for suicide prevention; however, most epidemiological studies focus on completed suicides across all ages rather than understanding the reasons behind suicide attempts in older populations.

Type
Commentary paper of the month
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 29 , Issue 5 , May 2017 , pp. 707 - 708
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2017 

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References

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