Facilitating Factors and Barriers to the Use of Emerging Technologies for Suicide Prevention in Europe: Multicountry Exploratory Study

Abstract

BackgroundThis study provides an analysis on the use of emerging technologies for the prevention of suicide in 8 different European countries.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to analyze the potentiality of using emerging technologies in the area of suicide prevention based on the opinion of different professionals involved in suicide prevention.MethodsOpinions of 3 groups of stakeholders (ie, relevant professionals in suicide field) were gathered using a specifically designed questionnaire to explore dimensions underlying perceptions of facilitating factors and barriers in relation to the use of emerging technologies for suicide prevention.ResultsGoal 1 involved facilitating factors for the use of emerging technologies in suicide prevention. Northern European countries, except for Belgium, attach greater relevance to those that optimize implementation and benefits. On the other hand, Southern European countries attach greater importance to professionally oriented and user-centered facilitating factors. According to different stakeholders, the analysis of these facilitating factors suggest that professionals in the field of social work attach greater relevance to those that optimize implementation and benefits. However, professionals involved in the area of mental health, policy makers, and political decision makers give greater importance to professionally oriented and user-centered facilitating factors. Goal 2 was related to barriers to the usability of emerging technologies for suicide prevention. Both countries and stakeholders attach greater importance to barriers associated with resource constraints than to those centered on personal limitations. There are no differences between countries or between stakeholders. Nevertheless, there is a certain stakeholders-countries interaction that indicates that the opinions on resource constraints expressed by different stakeholders do not follow a uniform pattern in different countries, but they differ depending on the country.ConclusionsAlthough all countries and stakeholders agree in identifying resource constraints as the main barrier to the use of emerging technologies, factors facilitating their use in suicide prevention differ among countries and among stakeholders.

Addressing Suicide Risk According to Different Healthcare Professionals in Spain: A Qualitative Study

“…Our objective is the use of the results of this qualitative research for the creation of a needs study which allows the implementation, in our health area, specific training groups of different professional cadres involved in the approach, treatment and prevention of the suicidal behaviors. This research is part of the European Regions Enforcing Actions Against Suicide (EUREGENAS) European project, which brings together 11 regions with different experiences with the aim to contribute to suicide prevention in Europe [ 50 , 51 ].…”

Extracting time patterns from the lifespans of TikTok challenges to characterize non-dangerous and dangerous ones

“…This is a topic much debated by researchers who study human behavior in social platforms. In the past, these authors have identified a wide range of "dangerous behaviors", such as: (i) harassing, discriminating (Lawson 2018;Fritz and Gonzales 2018), doxing (Wood et al 2019) and socially disenfranchising vulnerable individuals (Page et al 2018;Linabary and Corple 2019;Mitchell et al 2014;ii) stimulating suicidal tendencies and depressive symptoms among adolescents and young adults (Mitchell et al 2014;Lerman et al 2017;Guan et al 2015;iii) stimulating adolescents and young adults to engage in self-harming behavior (Zhu et al 2016;Pater and Mynatt 2017;Robert et al 2015;iv) stimulating social and aggressive behaviors; (v) stimulating online non-suicidal self-injury; (vi) discussing acts of self-harm and of cybersuicide (Patton et al 2014;Muñoz-Sánchez et al 2018;Khasawneh et al 2020). Such behaviors have been inherited by what we call "dangerous challenges" in TikTok.…”

“…Further analyses have been carried out to assess the role of social platforms with regard to sexual or aggressive behaviors that place youth at risk (Livingstone and Smith 2014). Finally, several researchers have investigated online self-injury and cyber-suicide (Patton et al 2014;Muñoz-Sánchez et al 2018;Khasawneh et al 2020). TikTok removes challenges reported as dangerous and has increased safety controls.…”

Examining the Self-Harm and Suicide Contagion Effects of the Blue Whale Challenge on YouTube and Twitter: Qualitative Study

“…Unfortunately, few studies have examined how social media can influence adolescents and young adults to engage in self-harming behavior [ 24 , 46 , 50 ]. Therefore, interdisciplinary research is beginning to highlight the urgent need to form a cohesive research agenda around digital self-harm [ 50 ], web-based NSSI [ 51 ], the use of social media to discuss deliberate self-harm acts [ 52 , 53 ], and acts of cybersuicide [ 52 , 53 ]. Most of this work, however, is in its early stages, with few drawing upon the developmental aspect of vulnerable adolescents’ social media use.…”