Epidemiology of suicidal behavior among Korean adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of suicidal behaviors and their relation to background characteristics, social integration, academic stress, psychological distress, and substance use in a stratified random sample of 9886 high school students in Korea. In a multiple logistic regression, we found that depression was the strongest predictor of suicidal behaviors. The other factors significantly associated with suicidal behaviors were gender, academic stress, hostility and substance use. These results indicate that early identification of risk factors for suicidal behaviors may have potential for reducing possible future suicides.