Adherence to Suicide Reporting Guidelines by News Shared on a Social Networking Platform

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2020 Jul 8

PMID 32631982

Citations 11

Authors

Steven A Sumner

Moira Burke

Farshad Kooti

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Rates of suicide in the United States are at a more than 20-y high. Suicide contagion, or spread of suicide-related thoughts and behaviors through exposure to sensationalized and harmful content is a well-recognized phenomenon. Health authorities have published guidelines for news media reporting on suicide to help prevent contagion; however, uptake of recommendations remains limited. A key barrier to widespread voluntary uptake of suicide-reporting guidelines is that more sensational content is perceived to be more engaging to readers and thus enhances publisher visibility and engagement; however, no empirical information exists on the actual influence of adherence to safe-reporting practices on reader engagement. Hence, we conducted a study to analyze adherence to suicide-reporting guidelines on news shared on social media and to assess how adherence affects reader engagement. Our analysis of Facebook data revealed that harmful elements were prevalent in news articles about suicide shared on social media while the presence of protective elements was generally rare. Contrary to popular perception, closer adherence to safe-reporting practices was associated with a greater likelihood of an article being reshared (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.19, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.10 to 1.27) and receiving positive engagement ("love" reactions) (AOR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.13 to 1.26). Mean safe-reporting scores were lower in the US than other English-speaking nations and variation existed by publisher characteristics. Our results provide empirical evidence that improved adherence to suicide-reporting guidelines may benefit not only the health of individuals, but also support publisher goals of reach and engagement.

Citing Articles

News Media Framing of Suicide Circumstances and Gender: Mixed Methods Analysis.

Foriest J, Mittal S, Kim E, Carmichael A, Lennon N, Sumner S JMIR Ment Health. 2024; 11:e49879.

PMID: 38959061 PMC: 11255531. DOI: 10.2196/49879.

Special Report from the CDC: Suicide rates, sodium nitrite-related suicides, and online content, United States.

Mack K, Kaczkowski W, Sumner S, Law R, Wolkin A J Safety Res. 2024; 89:361-368.

PMID: 38858061 PMC: 11262023. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsr.2024.03.002.

Emerging Trends of Self-Harm Using Sodium Nitrite in an Online Suicide Community: Observational Study Using Natural Language Processing Analysis.

Das S, Walker D, Rajwal S, Lakamana S, Sumner S, Mack K JMIR Ment Health. 2024; 11:e53730.

PMID: 38722220 PMC: 11085041. DOI: 10.2196/53730.

CDC Guidance for Community Response to Suicide Clusters, United States, 2024.

Ivey-Stephenson A, Ballesteros M, Trinh E, Stone D, Crosby A MMWR Suppl. 2024; 73(2):17-26.

PMID: 38412137 PMC: 10899085. DOI: 10.15585/mmwr.su7302a3.

Trends in stigmatizing language about addiction: A longitudinal analysis of multiple public communication channels.

McLaren N, Jones C, Noonan R, Idaikkadar N, Sumner S Drug Alcohol Depend. 2023; 245:109807.

PMID: 36801706 PMC: 10901231. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109807.

References

Rose G . Sick individuals and sick populations. Int J Epidemiol. 2001; 30(3):427-32; discussion 433-4. DOI: 10.1093/ije/30.3.427. View

Gould M, Kleinman M, Lake A, Forman J, Midle J . Newspaper coverage of suicide and initiation of suicide clusters in teenagers in the USA, 1988-96: a retrospective, population-based, case-control study. Lancet Psychiatry. 2015; 1(1):34-43. DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(14)70225-1. View

Michel K, Frey C, Wyss K, Valach L . An exercise in improving suicide reporting in print media. Crisis. 2000; 21(2):71-9. DOI: 10.1027//0227-5910.21.2.71. View

Zwald M, Holland K, Annor F, Kite-Powell A, Sumner S, Bowen D . Syndromic Surveillance of Suicidal Ideation and Self-Directed Violence - United States, January 2017-December 2018. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2020; 69(4):103-108. PMC: 7004405. DOI: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6904a3. View

Chandra P, Doraiswamy P, Padmanabh A, Philip M . Do newspaper reports of suicides comply with standard suicide reporting guidelines? A study from Bangalore, India. Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2013; 60(7):687-94. DOI: 10.1177/0020764013513438. View

Bohanna I, Wang X . Media guidelines for the responsible reporting of suicide: a review of effectiveness. Crisis. 2012; 33(4):190-8. DOI: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000137. View

Niederkrotenthaler T, Sonneck G . Assessing the impact of media guidelines for reporting on suicides in Austria: interrupted time series analysis. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2007; 41(5):419-28. DOI: 10.1080/00048670701266680. View

Stack S . Media coverage as a risk factor in suicide. Inj Prev. 2002; 8 Suppl 4:IV30-2. PMC: 1765497. DOI: 10.1136/ip.8.suppl_4.iv30. View

Gould M . Suicide and the media. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001; 932:200-21; discussion 221-4. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05807.x. View

10.

Sheftall A, Tissue J, Schlagbaum P, Singer J, Young N, Stevens J . Newspaper Adherence to Media Reporting Guidelines for the Suicide Deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. JAMA Netw Open. 2019; 2(11):e1914517. PMC: 6826645. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.14517. View

11.

OCarroll P, Potter L . Suicide contagion and the reporting of suicide: recommendations from a national workshop. United States Department of Health and Human Services. MMWR Recomm Rep. 1994; 43(RR-6):9-17. View

12.

Hedegaard H, Curtin S, Warner M . Suicide Mortality in the United States, 1999-2017. NCHS Data Brief. 2018; (330):1-8. View

13.

Armstrong G, Vijayakumar L, Niederkrotenthaler T, Jayaseelan M, Kannan R, Pirkis J . Assessing the quality of media reporting of suicide news in India against World Health Organization guidelines: A content analysis study of nine major newspapers in Tamil Nadu. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2018; 52(9):856-863. DOI: 10.1177/0004867418772343. View

14.

Phillips D . The influence of suggestion on suicide: substantive and theoretical implications of the Werther effect. Am Sociol Rev. 1974; 39(3):340-54. View

15.

Pirkis J, Burgess P, Francis C, Blood R, Jolley D . The relationship between media reporting of suicide and actual suicide in Australia. Soc Sci Med. 2006; 62(11):2874-86. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.11.033. View

16.

Gwet K . Computing inter-rater reliability and its variance in the presence of high agreement. Br J Math Stat Psychol. 2008; 61(Pt 1):29-48. DOI: 10.1348/000711006X126600. View

17.

Pirkis J, Blood R, Beautrais A, Burgess P, Skehans J . Media guidelines on the reporting of suicide. Crisis. 2006; 27(2):82-7. DOI: 10.1027/0227-5910.27.2.82. View

18.

Niederkrotenthaler T, Voracek M, Herberth A, Till B, Strauss M, Etzersdorfer E . Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects. Br J Psychiatry. 2010; 197(3):234-43. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074633. View

19.

Wongpakaran N, Wongpakaran T, Wedding D, Gwet K . A comparison of Cohen's Kappa and Gwet's AC1 when calculating inter-rater reliability coefficients: a study conducted with personality disorder samples. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2013; 13:61. PMC: 3643869. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2288-13-61. View

20.

Fu K, Chan Y, Yip P . Newspaper reporting of suicides in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guangzhou: compliance with WHO media guidelines and epidemiological comparisons. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2010; 65(10):928-33. DOI: 10.1136/jech.2009.105650. View