Department of Psychiatry, Soonchunhyang University Seoul Hospital, Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Department of Psychiatry, Uijeongbu St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Uijeongbu, Korea.
J Korean Med Sci. 2023 Feb 6;38(5):e39. doi: 10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e39.
This study aims to evaluate suicidal ideation, depression, and insomnia among parent survivors of adolescents who died by suicide and their relevant risk factors using psychological autopsy results from South Korea.
The participants were 42 parent survivors (10 fathers and 32 mothers) of 35 adolescents who died by suicide. We used the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Korean version of the Insomnia Severity Index to evaluate the mental health of the bereaved parents. We used the Korean Psychological Autopsy Checklist for Adolescents, the Korean Beck Depression Inventory, the Korean Version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-II, and the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime-Korean versions to evaluate the mental health of deceased adolescents before their deaths.
The results showed that many parent survivors of suicide had developed clinically significant suicidal ideation, depression, and insomnia (75.6%, 73.2%, and 42.9%, respectively). Furthermore, the higher the incidence of traumatic events experienced by the deceased adolescents, the higher the severity of depression and insomnia experienced by surviving parents.
We should pay attention that parent survivors of suicide can suffer mental disorders after their offspring's death. In future studies, long-term follow-up studies with larger samples need to generalize our findings and clarify the causal relationship.
本研究旨在利用韩国心理解剖结果评估青少年自杀死亡者的父母幸存者的自杀意念、抑郁和失眠情况及其相关危险因素。
参与者为 35 名自杀青少年的 42 名父母幸存者（10 名父亲和 32 名母亲）。我们使用患者健康问卷-9 和韩国版失眠严重程度指数评估丧亲父母的心理健康。我们使用青少年韩国心理解剖检查表、韩国贝克抑郁量表、韩国巴雷特冲动量表-II 以及儿童情感障碍和精神分裂症-现病史和终生-韩国版评估青少年在死亡前的心理健康状况。
结果表明，许多自杀幸存者的父母都出现了明显的自杀意念、抑郁和失眠（分别为 75.6%、73.2%和 42.9%）。此外，青少年经历的创伤性事件发生率越高，幸存父母的抑郁和失眠程度越严重。
我们应该注意到，自杀幸存者的父母在子女去世后可能会患上精神障碍。在未来的研究中，需要进行更大样本的长期随访研究来推广我们的发现并阐明因果关系。
