Client's Suicide and Its Relation to Drinking and Depression in Mental Health Social Workers in Korea

Background: The mental health social workers in Korea have a significant role in providing clinical social work services and mental health services in the social work fields. While they are providing social work services to the clients, they often experience clients commit or attempt suicide. These experiences can become traumatic and affect their mental health. The purpose of this study is to explore their experience in clients committing or attempting suicide and its relation to their depression and drinking traits.

Methods: The participants of this study are 277 mental health social workers in Korea. The participants were recruited for this study when they attended continuing education training. The Korean version of CES-D (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale) was administered to measure the level of depression in mental health social workers. The frequency and amount of drinking, and frequency of binge drinking were evaluated by using the questions in AUDIT-K (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test Korean version) to measure participants’ traits of drinking. The participants were asked whether they had experienced clients committing suicide or attempting suicide. Then they were divided into three groups: no experience of clients’ suicide, experienced clients attempting suicide, and experienced clients committing suicide. The depression and traits of drinking of participants were compared among these three groups by ANOVA and t-Test analysis.

Results: The participants’ mean age was 31.9 (SD=6.59), most of them were female social workers (79%), 62% were married, and their mean years of working experience in the mental health field was 5.17 (SD=4.07). 39.7% of participants had not experienced clients suicide at all, 25.3% experienced clients attempting suicide, and 35.0% experienced clients committing suicide. The mean score of depression was 35.1 (SD=9.22) and ranged from 20 to 65. The mean of frequency of drinking was 1.41 (SD=0.93) and ranged from 0 to 4, amount of drinking was 1.79 (SD=1.38) and ranged from 0 to 4, and frequency of binge drinking was 0.88 (SD=1.02) and ranged from 0 to 4.

In the results of the t-Test and ANOVA, the traits of drinking in mental health social workers were significantly different by experience of their clients’ suicide, but depression was not significantly different. The social workers who experienced clients suicide attempts had a higher frequency of drinking (F=7.291, p<.001) and a higher amount of drinking (F=4.141, p<.05) than social workers who experienced committing suicide. The social workers who experienced clients suicide attempts had a higher frequency of binge drinking than social workers who experienced clients no suicide attempts (F=7.344, p<.001). The level of depression was not significantly different among three groups.

Implications: The results from this study revealed that mental health social workers who experienced clients commit or attempt suicide had higher level of drinking: frequency, amount, and binge drinking, especially when they experienced clients attempt suicide. The effective coping strategies need to be established for social workers who were traumatized by their clients. When the organizations establish trauma informed care, these mental health issues need to be considered.