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Suicide is a leading health issue, which substantially contributes to the causes of death worldwide. Personality traits are some of the major risk factors for suicidality. We sought to identify the relationships between personality traits and suicidality by age group.The Big-Five Inventory-10 traits were measured in community-dwelling individuals in a nationally representative sample in the Republic of Korea. Because personality traits are long-standing patterns throughout one's lifetime, suicidality was measured based on lifetime history, rather than in a recent period. To comprehensively examine independent influences of personality traits on suicidality, psychiatric comorbidity and sociodemographic data were adjusted for.A total of 6022 subjects (3714 females and 2308 males) were included. Agreeableness (odds ratio (OR) [95% confidential intervals (CI)] = 0.79 [0.64-0.98]) was negatively associated with suicidal ideation, whereas neuroticism (1.27 [1.05-1.54]) and openness (1.36 [1.11-1.67]) were positively associated with suicidal ideation among young adults. Openness (1.25 [1.10-1.43]) had a positive association, and conscientiousness (0.86 [0.75-0.98]) had a negative association with suicidal ideation among the middle-aged group. Neuroticism is the only influencing factor for suicidal attempts among the young adult (1.88 [1.24-2.86]) and older (1.65 [1.24-2.20]) groups.Given the differential associations between personality traits and suicidality by age groups, future studies are needed to comprehensively identify possible roles of personality in suicide by age.

Because suicide is irreversible, prevention is paramount. For the optimal strategy to reduce lethal means, we sought to investigate age- and sex-associated variations in suicide methods. Data on annual causes of death from 1991 to 2015 in the Republic of Korea were used. Major sociodemographic correlates of the five suicide methods were analyzed by multiple multinominal logistic regression analysis. Among a total of 239,565 suicides from 1991 to 2015, hanging was most common. Gas poisoning sharply increased from 2007 to 2015. The gap between hanging and the second most common method of suicide has increased from 659 in 2004 to 4,433 in 2015. Charcoal burning was most commonly used by males younger than 45 years of age, whereas pesticide was commonly used by both sexes ages 55 years and older. Our results suggest that age- and sex-specific suicide prevention strategies are needed, particularly for gas and pesticide poisoning.

Objective: Patients with sleep-related breathing disorders are known to have more severe psychiatric symptoms than good sleepers. The aim of this study was to compare the psychiatric symptoms of participants with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), those with simple snoring (SS), and normal controls (NC)., Methods: A total of 386 participants (260 with OSA, 75 with SS, and 51 NC) completed self-report questionnaires including the Symptoms Checklist 90-Revised and underwent nocturnal polysomnography. The scores of nine primary symptom dimensions and three global distress indices of the Symptoms Checklist 90-Revised were compared among the three groups, adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index., Results: Participants with suspected OSA (OSA + SS) reported more severe psychiatric symptoms than the NC group. Compared with the participants with OSA, those with SS manifested more severe obsessive-compulsive (1.4 (1.0) versus 1.1 (0.7), p = .008) and depressive (1.2 (1.2) versus 0.8 (0.8), p = .031) symptoms and higher Global Severity Index (1.0 (0.9) versus 0.7 (0.6), p = .039) and Positive Symptom Distress Index (2.0 (0.8) versus 1.7 (0.6), p = .009). Only higher Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index values predicted higher Global Severity Index (B = 0.11, p = .041) and Positive Symptom Distress Index (B = 0.46, p = .007) in suspected OSA participants., Conclusions: This study found that individuals with suspected OSA experienced more severe psychiatric symptoms than NCs and that psychiatric symptoms were more severe in the SS group than in the OSA group. The psychiatric symptoms of suspected OSA patients were associated with subjective sleep quality rather than with the apnea-hypopnea index.

Objectives: Low prevalence and prognostic relevance of KRAS mutations in Korean pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs) need to be validated with sensitive detection method., Methods: Peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-mediated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) clamping was used to precisely detect KRAS mutation in 72 paraffinized tumor samples and was validated by pancreatic cell lines to compare the efficiency of direct sequencing., Results: The PNA-mediated PCR clamping detected mutant allele proportions of as low as 0.5% against a background of wild-type DNA and was 20-fold more sensitive than direct sequencing through the validation of pancreatic cell lines. Peptide nucleic acid-mediated PCR clamping detected KRAS mutations in 47.2% of 72 PDACs. Low tumor cellularity and low PCR amplification efficiency led to be undetected or failed by direct sequencing in pancreatic paraffinized samples.KRAS mutations were an independent worse prognostic factor predicting a reduced progression-free survival rate in the postoperative chemotherapy group., Conclusions: Peptide nucleic acid clamp real-time PCR was a sensitive method for detecting KRAS status in paraffinized PDAC samples. We identified a low KRAS mutation rate among the Korean PDAC patients using PNA clamp real-time PCR, potentially implicating epidemiological characteristics. The low KRAS mutation rate and its prognostic role may suggest the further survival benefit in Korean PDAC patients.

This was the first Korean national study to evaluate prevalence and correlates of suicidal behavior, and to compare multiple and single attempts. A total of 6510 adults completed face-to-face interviews (response rate, 81.7%) through randomly chosen one-person-per-households. Lifetime prevalence and correlates were evaluated with the Korean version of Composite International Diagnostic Interview (K-CIDI), and a questionnaire to inquire about suicidal behaviors. The lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation, plan, and attempt in South Korea was 15.2%, 3.3%, and 3.2% (single 2.1% and multiple 1.1%), respectively. Younger age was associated with attempts and more strongly associated with multiple attempts. Attempts were the most strongly associated with mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder, which was more strongly associated with multiple attempts. In conclusion, suicidal behaviors are highly prevalent in Korea, especially in young adults. Bipolar disorder was the most strongly associated disorder with suicide attempts, more with multiple attempts.

The objective was to estimate the prevalence and correlates of psychiatric disorders in a nationwide sample of Korean adults. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with the Korean version of Composite International Diagnostic Interview 2.1/DSM-IV (N = 6275, response rate 79.8%). The lifetime and 12-month prevalences for all types of DSM-IV disorders were 33.5% and 20.6%, respectively. Those of specific disorders were as follows: 17.2% and 7.1% for alcohol use disorder, 11.2% and 7.4% for nicotine use disorder, 5.2% and 4.2% for specific phobia, 4.3% and 1.7% for major depressive disorder, and 2.3% and 1.0% for generalized anxiety disorder. Among the sociodemographic variables, widowed status, higher income, and rural residence were the risk factors for both lifetime major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorder after controlling for gender, age, and education. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders was higher than those observed in other East-Asian countries and most European countries, but lower than that in the United States. Alcohol use disorder was particularly high in Korea.