Suicide notes as structured final communications: evidence from 100,000 deaths in South Korea
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: ABSTRACT Humans often communicate meaningfully during existential transition, yet the structure of final communications before death remains poorly understood. Suicide notes provide rare behavioral records, but two questions remain unresolved: whether note-leavers represent the broader population of suicide decedents, and whether notes follow systematic narrative structures. We analyzed a nationwide police-investigated registry of 102,922 suicide deaths in South Korea from 2013 to 2020, including 38,044 notes. Note-leavers differed systematically from non-leavers across demographic, situational and behavioral characteristics, indicating that note production reflects a selective communicative act within the suicidal process. Modeling notes as sequential narratives, we identified consistent patterns across opening, middle and closing sections, organized around apology and shame, love and gratitude, and practical directives concerning post-mortem affairs. Emotional trajectories also varied by age and gender. These findings provide population-scale evidence that suicide notes are structured final communications shaped by social relationships and demographic context under extreme circumstances.
Source: medRxiv
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221054035