부산대학교 도서관

Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the risk factors of suicidal ideation and their population attributable fraction in a representative sample of the elderly population in Korea. Method: We examined the dataset from the Survey of Living Conditions and Welfare Needs of Korean Older Persons, which was conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) in 2011. Participants (n=10,674) were randomly selected from the elderly aged greater than 65 years old. Multivariate logistic regression was used to investigate the risk factors of suicidal ideation in terms of their sociodemographic and health-related variables. Subsequently, the population attributable fraction (PAF) was calculated with adjustment for other risk factors.Results: The prevalence of depression and suicidal ideation were 30.3% and 11.2%, respectively. In multivariate analysis, our results revealed that old-old age (OR = 0.659 for 75-79 yrs, OR = 0.524 for 80-84 yrs, OR = 0.324 for older than 85 yrs), economic status (OR = 0.594 for 5th quintile), poor social support (OR = 1.279), current smoking (OR = 1.421), sleep problems (OR = 1.744), chronic illness (OR = 1.404), poor subjective health (OR = 1.559), functional impairment (OR = 1.448), and depression (OR = 4.364) were significantly associated with suicidal ideation. Depression was associated with a fully adjusted PAF of 45.7%, followed by chronic illness (19.4%), poor subjective health status (18.9%), sleep problems (14.1%), functional impairment (4.9%), poor social support (4.2%), and current smoking (3.6%).Conclusions: Among the various risk factors of suicidal ideation, preventive strategies focused particularly on depression might reduce the impact of suicidal ideation in the elderly population. In addition, a specific mental health center should be established to manage suicidal risk in the elderly population.