Suicide notes as structured final communications
- 1Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
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.
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BibTeX
@misc{jeong2026suicide,
title = {{Suicide notes as structured final communications}},
author = {J. Jeong and J. B. Park and A. O. Aderinwale and S. Y. Oh and Y. H. Hur and S. J. Lee and S. W. Kwon},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.05.26364805},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.26364805v1},
note = {CC BY-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Suicide notes as structured final communications
AU - J. Jeong
AU - J. B. Park
AU - A. O. Aderinwale
AU - S. Y. Oh
AU - Y. H. Hur
AU - S. J. Lee
AU - S. W. Kwon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.05.26364805
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.26364805v1
AB - 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.
ER -