Effects of experienced socioeconomic deprivation on suicidal ideation in South Korean: Analysis of the mediating effect of depression

Background

Although suicide rate has shown sharp rise in South Korea as polarization and social inequality rapidly increased in Korea since the economic crisis in 1997, little has been known about how socioeconomic factors are related to suicide in South Korea. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of experienced socioeconomic deprivation as relative poverty index on suicidal ideation and to test the mediating effect of depression.

Method

Data on experienced socioeconomic deprivation, depression and suicidal ideation were deprived from 9^th wave of the Korea Welfare Panel Study in 2014. The sample consisted of 12,920 individuals over the age of 20. After controlling for age, gender, education, marital status, household income, multiple linear regression analysis and binominal logistic regression analysis were used to explain the main effect of socioeconomic deprivation and indirect effect of depression on suicidal ideation. The mediating effect of depression was measured through bootstrapping.

Results

The results show that; 1) Experienced socioeconomic deprivation significantly increased their suicidal ideation (OR=1.360, 95% CI=1.306-1.416, p<.001), 2) More experienced socioeconomic deprivation is associated with higher level of depression (ß=268, p<.001), 3) Depression partially mediates the relationship between experienced socioeconomic deprivation and suicidal ideation (Z value=3.148, p<.05).

 

Conclusions

The findings suggest that socioeconomic deprivation directly increases suicidal ideation while depression mediates the relationship between experienced socioeconomic deprivation and suicidal ideation. Policy and practice interventions need to be planned considering that people who experienced socioeconomic deprivation may have suicidal ideation without depressive symptoms.