The risk for suicide contagion as a result of media reporting can be minimized by factual and concise media reports of suicide. Reports of suicide should not be repetitive, as prolonged exposure can increase the likelihood of suicide contagion. Suicide is the result of many complex factors; therefore media coverage should not report oversimplified explanations such as recent negative life events or acute stressors. Reports should not divulge detailed descriptions of the method used to avoid possible duplication.

Reports should not glorify the victim and should not imply that suicide was effective in achieving a personal goal such as gaining media attention. In addition, information such as hotlines or emergency contacts should be provided for those at risk for suicide. Following exposure to suicide or suicidal behaviors within one's family or peer group, suicide risk can be minimized by having family members, friends, peers, and colleagues of the victim evaluated by a mental health professional. Persons deemed at risk for suicide should then be referred for additional mental health services.

Is it possible to predict suicide?

At the current time there is no definitive measure to predict suicide or suicidal behavior. Researchers have identified factors that place individuals at higher risk for suicide, but very few persons with these risk factors will actually commit suicide. Risk factors include mental illness, substance abuse, previous suicide attempts, family history of suicide, history of being sexually abused, and impulsive or aggressive tendencies. Suicide is a relatively rare event and it is therefore difficult to predict which persons with these risk factors will ultimately commit suicide.

Copycat suicides are more likely to follow the suicide of a celebrity than if a member of the general population takes their own life, US study findings indicate.

Simon Stack, from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, analyzed 293 findings from 42 published studies investigating the impact of suicide studies reported in the media.

He found that research examining the effect of studies of celebrity suicides were 14.3 times more likely to find a copycat effect than other studies.

Studies that looked at real life, as opposed to fictional, accounts of suicides were 4.03 times more likely to reveal a copycat effect than were other studies, Stack reports in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Interestingly, the greater the degree of media coverage of a suicide, the more likely it was that a copycat effect would occur, although there were differences depending on the medium studied.

For example, televised suicides were 82% less likely to be associated with a copycat effect than were newspaper reports, possibly because TV coverage tends to last for no more than 20 seconds, while a newspaper can be saved, re-read, and digested.

He concludes: "Recent events in Austria and Switzerland show that suicide prevention organizations can change the quantity and/or quality of news reporting on suicide. Hence, the media may contribute to the reduction of suicide.

"However, it appears that the greatest reduction in copycat suicide may sometimes come from reducing the sheer quantity of news on suicide, as opposed to the perceived quality of news reporting."

J Epidemiol Community Health 2003; 57: 238?240

For more information on suicide and mental health: www.nimh.nih.gov ©2002 Laura E. Hansen, Counseling Notes, Odessa, Texas. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.psychiatrymatters.md/news/2003/week_12/day_5/p_0000053097.asp

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