Descriptive epidemiology on the trends and sociodemographic risk factors of disease burden in years of life lost due to suicide in South Korea from 2000 to 2018.

OBJECTIVES

In 2018, South Korea's suicide mortality rate was 26.59 deaths per 100 000 people; this figure is 2.2 times higher than that of the year 2000, during which 12.22 deaths per 100 000 people were ascribed to suicide. This study aims to observe the trend of disease burden in years of life lost (YLL) due to suicide from 2000 to 2018 in South Korea and investigate the related sociodemographic risk factors.

DESIGN

This quantitative research used secondary data-including claim data, cause of death statistics, life tables and census data-from national health insurance corporation and Statistics Korea. Based on the methodology of Korean National Burden of Disease study, this study used an incidence-based approach to measure YLL.

RESULTS

The total YLL due to suicide during the last two decades was 4 298 886 years; the average YLL per death was 18.65 years. The YLL rate per 100 000 people was 482 (male: 664, female: 300) in 2018, 1.7 times higher than the 387 (male 387, female 183) in 2000. Low education levels and non-marital status were shown to be related to the increase in YLL rate.

CONCLUSION

These results show the increasing disease burden of suicide in South Korea and suggest the necessity of more in-depth research to analyse correlation and causation with sociodemographic risk factors.