No abstract available.

Exploring the risk factors of adolescent suicide is important for effective suicide prevention. This study explored the clustering of adolescent suicides based on six risk factors: mental disorder, broken family, depression, anxiety, previous suicide attempts, and deviant behaviors. Using 173 student suicide reports obtained from the Ministry of Education, we evaluated the associations between suicide and variables related to mental disorders; dysfunctional family life; depression and anxiety; previous suicide attempts; deviant behaviors such as drinking and smoking; and school life characteristics, including attendance and discipline, problems within the past year, and incidents prior to suicide. In addition, reports of warning signs just before suicide were included in the analysis. The two-stage cluster analysis classified the students into three clusters: the silent type (cluster 1; 48.55%), in which no risk factors were observed; environmental-risk type (cluster 2: 24.28%), which featured a high frequency of broken households, deviant behaviors such as smoking/drinking and running away from home; and depressive type (cluster 3: 27.17%), which featured a high frequency of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts. Identifying the sub-types of adolescent suicide may help to inform tailored suicide prevention and intervention strategies in school.

To evaluate the characteristics of violent behavior of psychiatric inpatients, the authors reviewed clinical records of psychiatric patients who had admitted at UiJong Bu St. Mary's Hospital from January 1994 to lune 1995. We divided the 287 subjects into violent and nonviolent group according to the presence of violent behaviors in psychiatric ward. We assessed demographic variables, clinical characteristics and violent behaviors using Overt Aggression Scale and compared these variables of violent group with nonviolent group. The results were as follows: 1) The number of violent patients was 72(25.1% of the total). 2) In terms of demographic variables, the differences between two groups in education and occupation were significant(p<.05). 3) In psychiatric diagnoses, violent group were more likely to have mania, schizophrenia and organic rental disorder in sequence but there were no differences between violent and nonviolent group. 4) The history of violent behavior was greater in violent group(p<.001) and the mode of admission was significantly different between two groups(p<.005). 5) In cluster of psychopathology on admission, more frequently found clusters of psychopathology in violent group were agitation-excitement and hostile- suspiciousness and there were significant differences between two groups(p<.001). 6) The length of stay in violent group(59.3 days)was significantly longer than nonviolent group(38.4 days)(p<.001). 7) The types of violent behavior were verbal aggression, physical aggression against objects and physical aggression against other people in frequency sequence. 8) The most frequent type of behavioral clue before violent behavior was hyperactive, loud, verbally abusive, angry, hostile(68.1%). 9) Most of violent behaviors were presented between midday and 6 pm. in resting time. 10) 62.3% of total violent behaviors were occurred within first week following admission. 11) The variables which showed significant effects on total aggression score were religion, educational status, occupation, mode of admission, psychiatric diagnosis, psychopathology on admission and history of violent behavior before admission. In summary, these results showed similar trends compared to previous studies on characteristics of psychiatric inpatients. And we fecund that more important predictors of violent behavior in practice were likely to be history of violent behavior, psychopathology on admission and behavioral cue before violent behavior.
Aggression ; Bipolar Disorder ; Cues ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Educational Status ; Humans ; Inpatients* ; Length of Stay ; Mental Disorders ; Occupations ; Psychopathology ; Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVES: Tyrosine hydroxylase(TH) is a rate-limiting enzyme in the synthesis of catecholamines, and could be a candidate gene for causing the bipolar disorders. Therefore, we designed this study to investigate the association of the VNTR(variable number of tandem repeats) polymorphic locus in the first intron of the TH gene with bipolar disorders. METHODS: We typed VNTB polymorphic region of the TH gene using PCR in 115 bipolar patients and 85 normal controls. Four types of alleles(A, B, C, D) were typed according to the difference of the repeat(TCAT)6-9 number. The frequencies of allele and genotype were compared between patients and normal controls, and in patients and normal controls allelic frequencies were compared respectively in terms of family history of affective disorders and age of onset. RESULTS: 1) The allelic frequencies were significantly lower in type A, and significantly higher in type D in patient group compared to control group. The genotype frequencies were significantly higher in type BD in patient group than in control group. 2) In comparing the allelic frequencies among patient group with and without family history and control group, there were no significant differences between groups with and without family history, whereas patient group with family history showed lower significance in type A and higher significance in type D compared to control group. 3) In comparing the allelic frequencies among patient groups with early onset and late onset and control group, patient group with early onset showed higher significance in type D than patient group with late onset and showed lower significance in type A and higher significance in type D compared to control group. CONCLUSIONS: The authors conclude that the VNTR polymorphic region of the TH gene might be associated bipolar disorders, and type A and type D alleles might be susceptibility genes of bipolar disorder.
Age of Onset ; Alleles ; Bipolar Disorder ; Catecholamines ; Genotype ; Humans ; Introns ; Mood Disorders ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Tyrosine 3-Monooxygenase* ; Tyrosine*

Recently, local governments and suicide prevention centers have been trying to implement psychological autopsy. This effort has focused on adult suicide so far ; however, there are some difficulties in its application to adolescent suicide. Therefore, in this study, psychological autopsy studies of Korea were reviewed, and a methodology for adolescents\' psychological autopsy was suggested. For the effective performance of the psychological autopsy in adolescent suicide, cooperation with each area of the government and implementation of bodies is necessary. In addition, the central system, which disseminates the standardized interview to the community and manages the data nationwide, should be prepared. Also, in order to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and to obtain various types of information, a structured interview should be adopted as the psychological autopsy, as well as considering the use of social media. Investigation of specific risk factors for adolescent suicide through psychological autopsy can enable determination of the intervention point for effective suicide prevention.
Adolescent* ; Adult ; Autopsy* ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Korea ; Risk Factors ; Social Media ; Suicide

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the deficit in the recognition of facial emotions in a sample of medicated, stable Korean patients with schizophrenia using Korean facial emotion pictures and examined whether the possible impairments would corroborate previous findings. METHODS: Fifty-five patients with schizophrenia and 62 healthy control subjects completed the Facial Affect Identification Test with a new set of 44 colored photographs of Korean faces including the six universal emotions as well as neutral faces. RESULTS: Korean patients with schizophrenia showed impairments in the recognition of sad, fearful, and angry faces [F(1,114)=6.26, p=0.014; F(1,114)=6.18, p=0.014; F(1,114)=9.28, p=0.003, respectively], but their accuracy was no different from that of controls in the recognition of happy emotions. Higher total and three subscale scores of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) correlated with worse performance on both angry and neutral faces. Correct responses on happy stimuli were negatively correlated with negative symptom scores of the PANSS. Patients with schizophrenia also exhibited different patterns of misidentification relative to normal controls. CONCLUSION: These findings were consistent with previous studies carried out with different ethnic groups, suggesting cross-cultural similarities in facial recognition impairment in schizophrenia.
Collodion ; Ethnic Groups ; Humans ; Schizophrenia

Alcoholic ketoacidosis is a serious metabolic abnormality that occurs in chronic alcoholics. We report a case of bilateral necrosis in the basal ganglia after alcoholic ketoacidosis in a 42-year-old female chronic alcoholics. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the patient suggested subacute infarction with subsequent necrosis of the basal ganglia, which matches with the patients neurological manifestations. Repeated alcoholic ketoacidosis in chronic alcoholics could be the cause of subacute infarction following necrotic changes in the basal ganglia.
Adult ; Alcoholics* ; Alcoholism ; Basal Ganglia* ; Female ; Humans ; Infarction ; Ketosis* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Necrosis ; Neurologic Manifestations

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to identify the level of awareness regarding school-based suicide prevention programs in teachers who were in charge of the suicide prevention project, and to derive plans for future improvement. METHODS: A total of 582 teachers working in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country participated in this study. For the study, school-based suicide prevention programs were divided into four programs : curriculum-based program, staff in-service training, screening, and postvention ; the teachers' opinions regarding each program were then gathered by conduct of an online survey. RESULTS: The results indicated that participants chose the curriculum-based program as the most easily implementable program (65.6%), and postvention as the most difficult program to implement (52.9%). The curriculum-based program was implementable due to availability of procedure. Evasion of legal responsibility was significantly greater in postvention, making the program more desirable. Barriers to effective implementation include students' and parents' resistance to screening as well as time constraints in staff in-service training. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that a variety of preceding conditions must necessarily be prepared for successful implementation of each type of suicide prevention program. Policy implications and future directions are then discussed.
Humans ; Mass Screening ; Suicide*