Associations between stressors and suicidal behaviors among Korean adolescents: a gender-stratified analysis

초록

Background Suicide is the leading cause of death among Korean adolescents, underscoring an urgent public health crisis. Sources of stress and their associations with suicidal ideation and behavior remain underexplored despite stress contributing significantly to adolescent suicidality. Aims This study examined gender-stratified associations between sources of stress and suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts among Korean adolescents. Method We used data from the 2023 (19th) Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 50,013 adolescents experiencing stress. Separate logistic regression analyses were conducted for girls and boys to examine associations between sources of stress and suicidal outcomes, using academic and career stress as the reference and adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related variables. Results Academic and career stress were reported most frequently (61.5% male, 60.7% female). Prevalence of suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts was highest among girls reporting appearance-related stress and boys reporting school relationship stress (16.1%). Relative to academic and career stress, family relationship stress was consistently associated with higher odds of suicidal outcomes in girls, whereas family relationship and personal circumstance stress were associated with higher odds in boys. Conclusion Although academic and career stress was the most common stressor, family relationship stress was more consistently associated with suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts. Among girls, appearance-related stress showed the highest prevalence of suicidal behaviors. Gender-stratified analyses indicated that school relationship and personal circumstance stress were associated with suicidal outcomes among boys, whereas family relationship stress was most consistently associated with suicidal outcomes among girls.

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