Adolescent suicide warning... We're gonna have to find out with a psychological autopsy

Of the 36 teenage students, 25 had above-average school performance. Eighteen were satisfied with their school life. Sixteen were engaged in school club activities. Researchers wrote in a study into the short lives of these youths, “Most of them seemed to have little trouble with their lives, but deep inside they suffered silently.”

These 36 young people were those who died by suicide. Last year, Professor Hong Hyun-joo’s research team from the Department of Psychiatry at Hallym University College of Medicine carried out a psychological autopsy on 36 elementary, middle, and high school students who died by suicide between 2015 and 2021. A psychological autopsy infers suicidal causes based on interviews with bereaved families and records left by those deceased.

However, this research, temporarily funded by the Ministry of Education, was the first and last psychological autopsy conducted on young people who took their own lives in South Korea. Only adults aged 19 and older have been officially researched by the Ministry of Health and Welfare since 2015.

The study shed light on the unspoken sides of youth suicide that had been elusive in statistics. Of the 36 young victims, 29 had shown “warning signs” verbally or by actions before their tragic decision. Some spoke noticeably less, spent more time alone in their rooms, or made remarks such as, “I wish I could just disappear.” It was also the case for the three high school girls who were found dead together in Haeundae-gu, Busan, last month. Letters found at the scene revealed that they were stressed out due to their studies and concerns about their future.

Although 35 out of the 36 had been diagnosed with mental illness, only three had received medication on a regular basis. This only underscores the urgency to remove the stigma attached to mentally ill patients and encourage them to seek professional help. According to a 2022 survey by the National Center for Mental Health, 18 percent of teenagers experience mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. Still, only 5.6 percent have received mental health support at least once.

The research also concludes that youth suicide requires a different approach from that of adult suicide because a “first attempt” often ends up with fatal results. Although 41.1 percent of adult suicide victims had made previous suicidal attempts, only 13.9 percent of the youths studied in the psychological autopsy had done so. This indicates that it takes more than current suicide prevention policies, such as post-attempt follow-up programs based on ER visits, to prevent youth from ending their own lives.

The severity of youth suicide is clearly illustrated even in a few statistics. In 2023 alone, as many as 370 teenagers took their own lives, the highest suicide mortality rate per 100,000 people since relevant records were first made in 1983. Indeed, suicide has since 2011 remained the leading cause of death among teenagers.

President Lee Jae-myung called for "effective countermeasures against the country’s high suicide rate at his first cabinet meeting held on June 5 after his inauguration. To come up with effective measures for youth suicide, we should first identify what leads them to the point. The first step to take is to conduct psychological autopsies regularly and on a larger scale.