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| Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyoo-hong speaks during a press conference at the Government Complex in Seoul, Friday, after a government meeting presided by Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to tackle the country's suicide rate. Yonhap |
By Lee Hae-rin
Korea will implement mental health checkups once every two years and establish community-tailored suicide prevention programs across the country to tackle the country's notoriously high suicide rate, the government announced, Friday.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo presided over the sixth meeting with the suicide prevention plan committee in Seoul, Friday, and passed a set of comprehensive measures to tackle the problem.
The government's new five-year plan, which will take effect from 2023 to 2027, aims to lower Korea's current suicide rate of 24.1 deaths per 100,000 people as of 2021 to 18.2 per 100,000 people by 2027.
Korea has held the highest suicide rate among OECD nations for almost 20 years, with the latest figure in 2021 being more than double the average for OECD member nations, which is 11.1 deaths per 100,000 people.
According to the new measures, the government will require people to undergo mental health checkups more often for a wider range of mental health issues.
Koreans aged between 20 and 70s will be required to undergo mental health checkups every other year instead of the current frequency of every 10 years. The routine checkups are hoped to improve early detection of a wider range of mental illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and those identified as high risk for mental illness will be treated at neuropsychiatry clinics.
"The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), which assesses the degree of depression, has been a mandatory checkup to take every 10 years," a health ministry official told The Korea Times, Friday, explaining that although the mental health test was required, it was not enforced through any coercive measures.
With the government's new plan, people will now receive notifications for mental health checkups every two years as they do with medical checkups. However, the authority does not plan to penalize those who skip the checkup.
Also, the country will launch community-tailored suicide prevention programs by 17 city and provincial governments nationwide. For example, rural farming areas with aging populations will have programs targeting the elderly, while new towns housing mostly younger families will see programs tailored for teenagers and students.
The government will also launch a 24-hour monitoring organization specialized in controlling online content providing information on methods of suicide, organize suicide pacts or otherwise provoke suicidal thoughts.
So far, such monitoring has been operated as community-based activities by volunteers, which made it difficult to enact countermeasures in real time effectively.
The government will also establish suicide prevention and trauma recovery centers after catastrophic events in cooperation with local governments to help those affected.
The Korea Suicide Prevention Center, which currently offers suicide prevention counseling via telephone only (+82-1393), will also expand its services into social media to increase its accessibility for younger people who may prefer different methods of communication.
Those who attempted suicide and bereaved families of people who took their own lives, who are considered more at risk of suicide, will receive recovery support with counseling and treatment, starting this year.
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