PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify the rate of suicidal attempts, investigate difference of rate of suicidal attempts between students and delinquents, and examine correlation between personality, family dynamics, environment, and suicidal attempts among Korean adolescents. METHOD: Data were collected through questionnaire surveys. Internal consistencies for this questionnaire ranged from 0.63 to 0.88. The subject used in this study consisted of 922(delinquent : 367, student : 555), using the proportional stratified random sampling method. Statistical methods employed were Chi-square and t-test. RESULTS: 1) The rate of suicidal attempts were 10.8%, and the highest peak age of suicidal attempt was 17-18 year old (16.9%).2) Delinquents(19.6%) showed a higher rate of suicidal attempts than students (5.1%). Among the students, girls (43.3%) showed a higher rate of suicidal attempt than boys (19.1%). Whereas, boys (80.9%) showed a higher rate of suicidal attempt than girls (56.7%) among delinquents.3) Those who attempt suicide have more familial problem such as incest, psychosis, depression, attempted suicide, committed suicide, and alcoholism in their family. They also have more dysfunctional family dynamics, environment, and maladaptive personalities than non-attempters. CONCLUSIONS: Suicide and suicidal behaviors are multifaceted events. For suicide prevention, independent assessments of variables such as familial problems, personality, family dynamics, and environment must be considered.

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PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the important factors on juvenile delinquency and to examine relationships between sex, age, the family environment, the personality of adolescents, smoking, and juvenile delinquency.
Methods
Data collection was done through questionnaire surveys. The subjects for this study consisted of 1,948 adolescents delinquents : 784, students : 1,164 in Korea, using proportional stratified random sampling method. Statistical methods employed were chi-square, t-test and path analysis. Results: The results of this study were as follows : 1. The delinquent adolescents were reared in a more dysfunctional family environment, and had a higher maladaptive personality than the other student adolescents. 2. The delinquent adolescents showed the larger amount of smoking than the student adolescents. The cause of increased smoking tendency among delinquents simply were 'for social relation', 'for diversion', 'for nicotine addiction', whereas 'for tension relieving' among non-delinquent adolescents. 3. The most powerful contributors on delinquent behavior were antisocial personality tendencies, smoking, sex, strength of parent- child relationships, and the age of the adolescents in this order.
Conclusions
Our cross-sectional findings indicate that smoking was one of the most powerful contributing variables to delinquent behavior, but family environment, personality, sex and age of adolescents were also proved to be strong exogenous variables to smoking in adolescents.

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  Kyung-Hee Lee, Hea-Shoon Lee
  Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene.2015; 15(4): 583.     CrossRef
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  Sunhee Park
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  Jeongyee Bae, Panuncio Rosel
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