Public Service Announcements to Change Attitudes about Youth Suicide: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Ftanou, Maria; Ross, Anna; Machlin, Anna; Spittal, Matthew J; King, Kylie; Nicholas, Angela; Hocking, Jane; Robinson, Jo; Reavley, Nicola; Pirkis, Jane

doi:10.1080/13811118.2020.1765929

Cited by 10 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These findings highlighted that young people can be safely engaged in the development of suicide prevention PSAs and that their contribution could be valuable. Their involvement in this study lead to an understanding of the types of PSAs that young people thought would be useful in campaigns, which supported the development of three suicide prevention PSA for testing in a RCT [ 44 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Young people’s perspectives on how to best design suicide prevention PSAs that target them are critical. In the current study, young people helped shape our thinking about PSAs that were ultimately created and tested in an RCT [ 44 ]. Involving young people in the development of suicide prevention PSAs is rare but has the potential to lead to a better understanding of their needs and improve the quality of the message and format in which it is delivered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Developing Public Service Announcements to Help Prevent Suicide among Young People

Ftanou

Reavley

Robinson

et al. 2021

IJERPH

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people in Australia. Media campaigns have the potential to reach a broad audience, change attitudes and behaviours, and, ultimately, help prevent suicide. Little is known about the type of content or format suicide prevention media message should take to help prevent suicide among young people. Objective: the objective of this study was to involve young people aged 18 to 24 years in developing three suicide prevention public service announcement (PSAs) targeting young people at risk of suicide appropriate for testing in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Method: fifteen young people attended at least one of four workshops in Melbourne, Australia. The workshops focused on exploring the appropriateness of three key suicide prevention media PSAs: “Talk to someone”, “Find what works for you”, and “Life can get better”. Young people also provided input into message content, format, and design. Results: participants perceived that all three suicide prevention PSAs were useful and helpful. Participants were concerned that the PSAs may not be suitable for nonwestern cultural groups, could trivialise psychological suffering, and that the actions they promoted could seem distant or unattainable to young people at risk. The featuring of young people, especially young people with hopeful narratives of how they overcame a suicidal crisis, was considered to be an important characteristic of suicide prevention PSAs targeting young people. Conclusions: Developing suicide prevention PSAs with young people is rare but essential to better understand young people’s needs and improve the quality of suicide prevention media PSAs. Further research is needed to evaluate the impact of suicide prevention PSAs developed by young people, for young people.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Public Service Announcements to Help Prevent Suicide among Young People

Ftanou

Reavley

Robinson

et al. 2021

IJERPH

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…No additional ongoing or completed trials of possible relevance were identified in the search of clinical trials registries as listed in CADTH's Grey Matters. This left eight unique studies 8,[10][11][12][13][14]23,24 for our qualitative synthesis and meta-analysis (table and appendix p 7). IPD data were sought and obtained from all eight studies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of media stories of hope and recovery on suicidal ideation and help-seeking attitudes and intentions: systematic review and meta-analysis

Niederkrotenthaler

Till

Kirchner

et al. 2022

The Lancet Public Health

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background There is strong evidence that suicides increase after media stories about suicides by celebrities, particularly those that highlight the suicide method (the Werther effect). Much less is known about the Papageno effect-the protective effects of media stories of hope and recovery from suicidal crises. A synthesis of the retrievable evidence is lacking. We aim to summarise findings from randomised controlled trials about the effects of stories of hope and recovery on individuals with some degree of vulnerability to suicide.Methods For this systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis, we searched PubMed (including MEDLINE), Scopus, Embase, PsycInfo, Web of Science, and Google Scholar published from inception to Sept 6, 2021, without language restrictions. We included trials that reported suicidal ideation (the primary outcome) or helpseeking attitudes or intentions (the secondary outcome) and tested a media narrative of hope and recovery. Studies were excluded if they did not feature a clearly positive story of hope and recovery, or had a control group exposed to suicide-related stimulus material. We contacted the lead or senior authors of all original studies to obtain participantlevel data for this study. The primary analysis was restricted to individuals with some vulnerability to suicide. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomised trials. The study is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42020221341.Findings Our search yielded 7347 records. 3920 records were screened by title and abstract, and 25 full-text records assessed for eligibility. There were eight eligible studies with 2350 participants for which individual participant data were sought. For suicidal ideation, six studies met the inclusion criteria for the primary analysis. Follow-up responses were available for 569 (90%) of 633 participants who were randomised with high vulnerability (345 [55%] allocated to the intervention group and 288 [45%] to the control group). The pooled standardised mean difference (SMD) indicated a small reduction in suicidal ideation of -0•22 (95% CI -0•39 to -0•04, p=0•017; six studies) in the intervention group. For help-seeking attitudes and intentions, four studies met the inclusion criteria and follow-up data were available for 362 (86%) of 420 participants (247 [59%] allocated to the intervention group and 173 [41%] to the control group). The pooled SMD showed no evidence of a difference between the groups (SMD=0•14, 95% CI -0•15 to 0•43, p=0•35; four studies). Low levels of cross-study heterogeneity effects were observed for both analyses (I²=5% [suicidal ideation] and I²=36% [help-seeking attitudes and intentions]). We found no evidence of publication bias.Interpretation Media narratives of hope and recovery from suicidal crises appear to have a beneficial effect on suicidal ideation in individuals with some vulnerability, but there is insufficient evidence regarding help-seeking attitudes and intentions. These findings provide new evidence about narrative...

show abstract

“…Several studies suggest that media stories featuring positive narratives of coping might reduce suicidal ideation [ 4 , 5 ] and increase help-seeking intentions [ 6 ], the so-called Papageno effect [ 7 ]. However, little is known about the impact of these narratives for young people [ 8 , 9 ]. There are currently only three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) available that investigated media effects of this kind of messaging in young adults [ 8 , 10 , 11 ], but results are inconsistent, and none of these studies have included young adolescents under the age of 18.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, little is known about the impact of these narratives for young people [ 8 , 9 ]. There are currently only three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) available that investigated media effects of this kind of messaging in young adults [ 8 , 10 , 11 ], but results are inconsistent, and none of these studies have included young adolescents under the age of 18. This is in spite of the fact that this age group is confronted with youth-specific challenges, such as managing identity formation, peer pressure, and developmental changes [ 12 , 13 ], and the need for tailored prevention strategies has been highlighted in the literature [ 12 , 14 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of suicide prevention videos developed by and targeting adolescents: a randomized controlled trial

Braun

Till

Pirkis

et al. 2021

Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Suicide prevention videos featuring young people’s personal narratives of hope and recovery are increasingly used in suicide prevention, but research on their effects is scarce. A double-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted to test the effects of a suicide prevention video featuring an adolescent mastering his suicidal ideation by getting help on 14 to 19-year-olds. N = 299 adolescents were randomly allocated to watch the intervention video (n = 148) or a control video unrelated to mental health (n = 151). Questionnaire data were collected before (T1) and immediately after exposure (T2), and 4 weeks later (T3). Data were analyzed with a repeated-measures ANCOVA. The primary outcome was suicidal ideation, assessed with the Reasons for Living Inventory for Adolescents. Secondary outcomes were help-seeking intentions, attitudes towards suicide, stigmatization of suicidality, and mood. There was an immediate beneficial effect of the intervention on suicidal ideation (T2 mean change from baseline within intervention group MChange = − 0.16 [95% CI − 0.20 to − 0.12], mean difference compared to control group MDiff = − 0.09 [95% CI − 0.15 to − 0.03], ηp2 = 0.03), which was not maintained at T3. Participants reported significantly higher help-seeking intentions, which was maintained at 4-week follow-up. They also reported a sustained reduction of favorable attitudes to suicide. Effects on suicidal ideation were mediated by identification with the featured protagonist. Adolescents appear to benefit from suicide prevention narratives featuring personal stories from peers on coping with suicidal ideation and help-seeking.Trial registration DRKS00017405; 24/09/19; retrospectively registered.

show abstract

Public Service Announcements to Change Attitudes about Youth Suicide: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

Developing Public Service Announcements to Help Prevent Suicide among Young People

Developing Public Service Announcements to Help Prevent Suicide among Young People

Effects of media stories of hope and recovery on suicidal ideation and help-seeking attitudes and intentions: systematic review and meta-analysis

Effects of suicide prevention videos developed by and targeting adolescents: a randomized controlled trial

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About