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A study on the mental health outcomes of North Korean male defectors: comparing with general Korean males and searching for health policy implications

Article information

J Korean Med Assoc. 2011;54(5):537-548
Publication date (electronic) : 2011 May 11
doi : https://doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2011.54.5.537
Jun-Hong Kim, PhD
School of Media & Communication, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
Corresponding author: Jun-Hong Kim, junnh@hanmail.net
Received 2011 March 10; Accepted 2011 April 12.

Abstract

The present study attempts to understand the features of North Korean male defectors' emotive, cognitive and behavioral responses to criminal victimizations when compared with general Korean male population, the reference group, and to explore mental health and medical policy implications from the statistical analyses. Using and analyzing merged data from 'Crime Victimization in Korea, 5 (2006),' and 'A Survey on North Korean Refugees (2006),' the author found that group differences do exist in the components of emotive, cognitive and behavioral responses to possible victimizations from crimes and violences. For each of emotive and cognitive responses to threat of victimizations, North Korean defectors scored significantly higher than general male population except perceived vulnerability. For behavioral responses, however, North Korean defectors scored significantly lower. These results were interpreted to provide the evidences for the need of transformations of micro- and macro-level health policies for North Korean defectors.

Keywords: North Korean male defectors; Posttraumatic stress disorder; Victimization of crime and violence; Mental health; Health policy

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Table 1

Demographics of the respondents

Table 1

Values are presented as number (%).

Table 2

Comparison between two groups

Table 2

*p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001

Table 3

Home-protective behaviors in each group

Table 3

Values are presented as number (%).

**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.