Psychiatry and the WWW: some implications

The Internet and its potential influence on suicide

“…A further UK case report (Suresh & Lynch, 1998), indicated how the Internet could be used to intervene in suicide attempts. In this instance, a woman who had taken a potentially lethal overdose and had posted a suicide note on the Internet was saved after a computer 'hacker' in the UK traced her whereabouts and alerted the local police, who broke into her apartment and took her to hospital.…”

The Relationship Between Elderly Suicide Rates and the Internet: a Cross-National Study

“…Internet websites and chat rooms may also have positive benefi ts for individuals with suicidal ideation: act as a resource to help suicidal individuals to seek help; identify individuals at risk of suicide; provide a method of communication with suicidal individuals, which has been successfully used by the Samaritans; support survivors of suicide attempts; and chat rooms may act in a manner akin to telephone helplines (Thompson, 1999;Alao et al, 2006;Tam et al, 2007). Additionally, there was a case report of a woman who had taken a lethal overdose and posted a suicide note on the internet, being rescued after a computer hacker traced her whereabouts and informed the police (Suresh & Lynch, 1998).…”

Suicide online: Portrayal of website-related suicide by the New Zealand media

“…In this way prevention was primarily seen as being accomplishable through the moderation of website use or via legal sanctions. It has been argued, however, that the usefulness of filtering software is still limited, since it keeps children away from this kind of adult content without also eliminating the positive examples , and these are numerous in the context of the internet as a tool for prevention of suicide (Barak, 2007;Barak and Bloch, 2006;Elfrink et al, 2006;Greidanus and Everall, 2010;Hoffmann, 2006;Omar, 2005;Prasad and Owens, 2001;Suresh and Lynch, 1998). Consequently, rather than framing news items on website-related suicide in a way that only provides a focus on the concept of censorship, journalists could assist those vulnerable to suicide by reporting on access to suicide prevention information, counselling and supportive chat rooms online.…”