보건복지부 영문홈페이지

Mental Health Check-up Cycle Shortened
from Every 10 to 2 Years,
“Live Life Community Project” launched
as a way of suicide prevention

The 5th Master Plan for Prevention of Suicide (2023~2027) has been established to strengthen the life-safety network of Korean society and suicide prevention

Korea with the highest suicide rate among OECD nations, is determined to exert sheer efforts on lowering the number of suicides by 30% until 2027

Prompt responses in the entire stages of suicide prevention measures from monitoring suicide-provoking information or careless reportings of suicide cases to actual rescuing of suicide attempters. Counseling services for vulnerable people using the social network will be available in the near future

Intensive supports including counseling services and medical care will be provided for people who attempted suicide and bereaved families

Major changes are made to the mental health checkup service and community-based prevention measures. Along with the physical health check-up period, mental health check-up service will be available every two years under the national health insurance plan to detect signs of mental health threats including depression at the earliest stage possible and to offer proper medical help.Accordingly, the “Live Life Community Project” will be launched, based on the characteristics of each community.

The government held the 6th“Suicide Prevention Policy Committee” meeting presided over by Prime Minister Han Duck-sooat 10 am, Friday, April 14, at the main conference room of the Government Complex Seoul, and the 5thMaster Plan for Prevention of Suicide (2023~2027)*was finalized. The plan includes ways to strengthen the life safety network of local communitiesto mitigate the potential risk of a sudden rise in the suicide rate due tosocio-economic changesincluding social isolation and financial hardship in the post-pandemic era.

* A pan-governmental comprehensive plan is established every five years under the Act On The Prevention Of Suicide And The Creation Of Culture Of Respect For Life (hereinafter ‘Act on Prevention of Suicide’).

Various interest groups such as academia, practitioners, bereaved families, youth representative groups, and government ministrieshave worked jointly to identify various tasks, and collected a wide spectrum of opinionsthrough a public hearing (on February 13, 2023) and the Suicide Prevention Policy Working Committee meeting (chaired by the 2ndVice-Minister of Health and Welfare, March 7, 2023).

Under the vision of “A Society Free From Suicide,”the plan aims to reduce the suicide rate (a rate showing the number of suicides out of every 100,000 people) by 30% until 2027 (26.0% in 2021 to 18.2% in 2027). The plan is consisted of 5 major strategies*, 15 agendas and 92 implementation tasks.

* ▲Strengthening life safety networks, ▲Mitigating suicide risk factors, ▲Improving follow-up management after suicide attempts, ▲Implementing client-friendly plans of suicide prevention, ▲Enhancing the infrastructure to deliver a suicide prevention policy

Firstly, mental health check-up service will be significantly improved both in its period and coverage. Previously, people in their 20s through their 70s were recommended to undergo a mental health check-up every ten years. Under the new plan, it will be available every two years similar to physical health check-ups.The scope of coverage will be expanded to include schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder in addition to depression.In the case an individual is deemed to be at risk, he/she will be transferred to a psychiatrist for early diagnosis and treatment.To do this, follow-up research is currently under way to prove the feasibility on what specific tests should be included in the national mental health check-up. After that, the service will be implemented for people between the ages of 20 and 34 by as early as 2025, and the coverage will be gradually expanded to different age groups.

“Live life Community Project”will be newly overhauled at a nationwide level to plan and implement community-based prevention measures.A feasible model of the project will: In an area of new towns with a high suicide rate of young population, “Live life community for Youths”(tentative name) will be promoted or in an rural area where most of the risky people are elderly, “Live life Community for the Elderly”(tentative name) will be introduced. In addition, “Gatekeepers” will be trained to discover vulnerable people around us as early as possible and will be tasked with connecting them to professionals for specialized assistance. As an example, residentmeetings to implement suicide prevention measures, such as delivering campaigns, will be conducted to mitigate total suicide risk in the community.

The organization for monitoring suicide-provoking informationwill be reinforced. Currently, only volunteering groups wereinvolved in monitoring ofdetrimental information such as online posts provoking people to commit group suicide and photos or texts which instructing detailed methods to commit suicide. Under the circumstance, real-time response or actual assistance had limited efficacy and only partial measures such as requesting for deletion of the information on web were feasible. Our new plan will allow a governmental agency to monitor detrimental information responsibly and make prompt responses, including reporting to the police for an emergency response.

The Trauma Center and the Mental Health Welfare Center (the Suicide Prevention Center)will jointly institute the ‘suicide crisis help system’ which provides follow-up services after suicide deaths or attempts. The Trauma Center is responsible for responding immediately to initial traumatic incidents and assessing suicide risk.Then, the Mental Health Welfare Center (the Suicide Prevention Center) will closely manage high-risk groups by conducting quarterly monitoring for a maximum of two years.

Contact Information of first-aid mental treatment needed groups such as suicide attempters and bereaved familieswill be rapidly handed over to practitioners in the Mental Health Welfare Center (the Suicide Prevention Center)only for the purpose ofproviding treatment, counseling service or any proper support to help them recover. Starting from 2023, the high-risk groups will receive financial support for medical expenses under the theme of timely medical intervention.The support will include expenses for treatment of physical impairments from self-harm, psychiatric treatment and psychological counseling.

Bereaved families of suicide victims often face complicated problems including legal and financial issues as well as psychological stress and trauma, and thus need comprehensive support. The bereaved family-response staff will be sent to the place where a suicide takes place immediately after it has occurred, and offer one-stop services to bereaved families including initial responses, psychological support, legal issues, temporary residence and administrative assistance. This one-stop service, which is currently available in 9 provinces*, will be made available nationwide.

* Seoul, Incheon, Daegu, Gwangju, Sejong, Gangwon, Chungnam, Chungbuk and Jeju

This will make it possible for municipalities to collect suicide data promptly and make effective and timely suicide prevention plans. It is a top priority to collect timely data fordetecting a sudden rise in suicide rates of local communities and to deliver the right and prompt actions. However, there has been a one-year lag for local governors to collect their community-based suicide data from Police and Statistics branch. Under the revisedAct on the Prevention of Suicide,the Ministry of Health and Welfare can receive criminal information on suicide victims from official police records, and provide prompt notices to local governments where a sudden suicide rate spike has been detected.Accordingly, these areas will establish their own customized suicide prevention measures and tackle the rising trend.

For financially burdened people, mental health and suicide prevention services will be provided bywelfare membership* program to address people prone to suicide from financial struggles. Local governments will act proactively to detect the financially risky groups as early as possible, and intervene when necessary. In addition, the Mental Health Welfare Center (the Suicide Prevention Center)and the financial services provider (The Integrated Support Center for Microfinance) will work more closely to make multi-faceted efforts, ensuring that target individuals struggling with financial difficulty receive mental healthcare services as well.

* The program analyzes income, property and other financial information, then proactively informs the individuals of the welfare services he/she is eligible for

The Ministry of Health and Welfare will further expand cooperation with the Ministry of Education (schools), the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (youths), the Ministry of National Defense (military bases), and the Ministry of Employment and Labor (workplaces) to design suicide prevention policy directed at the target groupconsidering the client’s life-cycle stages(children, adolescents, young adults and the elderly) and type of venue (schools, workplaces, military bases, etc.).

Furthermore, suicide prevention counseling is provided via phone call (1393), as well as through social media to allow adolescents and young adults to seek help anytime, anywhere.