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Article: The Impact of Improving Suicide Death Classification in South Korea: A Comparison with Japan and Hong Kong

TitleThe Impact of Improving Suicide Death Classification in South Korea: A Comparison with Japan and Hong Kong
Authors
Issue Date2015
PublisherPublic Library of Science. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.plosone.org/home.action
Citation
Plos One, 2015, v. 10 n. 5, article no. e0125730 How to Cite?
AbstractIntroduction The suicide rate of South Korea has increased dramatically during the past decades, as opposed to steadily decreasing trends in Japan and Hong Kong. Although the recent increase of suicide in South Korea may be related to changing socioeconomic conditions and other contextual factors, it may also reflect, in part, a reduction of misidentified suicide cases due to improving classification of manner of death. Method We compared the annual proportional change of suicide, undetermined death, and accidental death from South Korea with those of Japan and Hong Kong from 1992 to 2011; a greater proportional change of the manner-of-death categories during the period is indicative of a relatively less stable registration and hence a greater potential for misclassification bias on reported suicide trends. Subgroup analyses stratifying the deaths by methods were also conducted. To estimate the impact, the age-standardized rates of these three death categories in each site were calculated. Results We found that, during the 20-year observation period, the proportional change of suicide, undetermined death, and accidental death in South Korea was significantly greater than Japan and Hong Kong. Similar observations were made in subgroup analyses. While death rates of the three manners in Japan and Hong Kong generally moved in a parallel fashion, the increase of suicide in South Korea occurred concomitantly with a significant reduction of its accidental death rate. 43% of the increase in suicides could be attributed to the decrease in accidental deaths, while 57% of the increase could be due to fundamental causes. Conclusion Our data suggest that, during the mid-1990s and after, the increasing burden of suicide in South Korea initially was masked, in part, by misclassification. Thus, the later apparently rapid increase of suicides reflected steadily improving classification of manner of death, as well as a more fundamental increase in the suicide rate.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/227013
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.9
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.839
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorChan, CH-
dc.contributor.authorCaine, ED-
dc.contributor.authorChang, SS-
dc.contributor.authorLee, WJ-
dc.contributor.authorCha, ES-
dc.contributor.authorYip, PSF-
dc.date.accessioned2016-07-14T06:49:48Z-
dc.date.available2016-07-14T06:49:48Z-
dc.date.issued2015-
dc.identifier.citationPlos One, 2015, v. 10 n. 5, article no. e0125730-
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/227013-
dc.description.abstractIntroduction The suicide rate of South Korea has increased dramatically during the past decades, as opposed to steadily decreasing trends in Japan and Hong Kong. Although the recent increase of suicide in South Korea may be related to changing socioeconomic conditions and other contextual factors, it may also reflect, in part, a reduction of misidentified suicide cases due to improving classification of manner of death. Method We compared the annual proportional change of suicide, undetermined death, and accidental death from South Korea with those of Japan and Hong Kong from 1992 to 2011; a greater proportional change of the manner-of-death categories during the period is indicative of a relatively less stable registration and hence a greater potential for misclassification bias on reported suicide trends. Subgroup analyses stratifying the deaths by methods were also conducted. To estimate the impact, the age-standardized rates of these three death categories in each site were calculated. Results We found that, during the 20-year observation period, the proportional change of suicide, undetermined death, and accidental death in South Korea was significantly greater than Japan and Hong Kong. Similar observations were made in subgroup analyses. While death rates of the three manners in Japan and Hong Kong generally moved in a parallel fashion, the increase of suicide in South Korea occurred concomitantly with a significant reduction of its accidental death rate. 43% of the increase in suicides could be attributed to the decrease in accidental deaths, while 57% of the increase could be due to fundamental causes. Conclusion Our data suggest that, during the mid-1990s and after, the increasing burden of suicide in South Korea initially was masked, in part, by misclassification. Thus, the later apparently rapid increase of suicides reflected steadily improving classification of manner of death, as well as a more fundamental increase in the suicide rate.-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherPublic Library of Science. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.plosone.org/home.action-
dc.relation.ispartofPLoS ONE-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.titleThe Impact of Improving Suicide Death Classification in South Korea: A Comparison with Japan and Hong Kong-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailChang, SS: sschang@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.emailYip, PSF: sfpyip@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityChang, SS=rp01582-
dc.identifier.authorityYip, PSF=rp00596-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0125730-
dc.identifier.pmid25992879-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-84930661768-
dc.identifier.volume10-
dc.identifier.issue5-
dc.identifier.spagearticle no. e0125730-
dc.identifier.epagearticle no. e0125730-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000354921400044-
dc.publisher.placeUnited States-
dc.identifier.issnl1932-6203-

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