ABSTRACT

The suicide rates rose from 12.9 per 100,000 persons in 1996 to 24.8in 2007. The suicide rate for the elderly has been rising more rapidlywhen compared to those of the other age groups. In order to preventsuicidal behavior for the elderly patients, it is necessary to find outand/or any risk or buffering factor that is related suicidal ideation.This study was to delineate a buffering effect of family support andspirituality on suicidal ideation for the elderly outpatients. Eventhough the sample size was not good enough and there were genderdifferences in educational level and age from the current sample, thebuffering effects were confirmed. That is, the only buffering factor offamily support was confirmed for the male patients and it occupiedabout 11% of explained variance for the suicidal ideation. In addition,there were two buffering factors of spirituality and family support forthe female patients. Interestingly, in the female sample, the ratio ofvariance explained for the spirituality was almost 55% and that offamily support about 3%.