Systematic review and meta-analyses of suicidal outcomes following fictional portrayals of suicide and suicide attempt in entertainment media

Niederkrotenthaler, Thomas; Kirchner, Stefanie; Till, Benedikt; Sinyor, Mark; Tran, Ulrich S.; Pirkis, Jane; Spittal, Matthew J

doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.100922

Cited by 21 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This has been the focus of many original research papers and several systematic reviews and meta-analyses. [33][34][35][36] This evidence base has, in turn, informed the development of guidance for the media on reporting suicide, the implementation of which has itself been the subject of review. 37 In some jurisdictions where EAS has been decriminalised, it remains an offence to counsel, incite or encourage suicide.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the relationship between euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and rates of non-assisted suicide: systematic review

2022

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Background Euthanasia and assisted suicide (EAS) are practices that aim to alleviate the suffering of people with life-limiting illnesses, but are controversial. One area of debate is the relationship between EAS and suicide rates in the population, where there have been claims that availability of EAS will reduce the number of self-initiated deaths (EAS and suicide combined). Others claim that legislation for EAS makes it acceptable to end one's own life, a message at variance with that of suicide prevention campaigns. Aims To examine the relationship between the introduction of EAS and rates of non-assisted suicide and self-initiated death. Method We conducted a systematic review to examine the association between EAS and rates of non-assisted suicide and of self-initiated death. We searched PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO and Science Direct, until 20 December 2021. Studies that examined EAS and reported data on population-based suicide rates were included. Results Six studies met the inclusion criteria; four reported increases in overall rates of self-initiated death and, in some cases, increased non-assisted suicide. This increase in non-assisted suicide was mostly non-significant when sociodemographic factors were controlled for. Studies from Switzerland and Oregon reported elevated rates of self-initiated death among older women, consistent with higher rates of depressive illnesses in this population. Conclusions The findings of this review do not support the hypothesis that introducing EAS reduces rates of non-assisted suicide. The disproportionate impact on older women indicates unmet suicide prevention needs in this population.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the relationship between euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and rates of non-assisted suicide: systematic review

2022

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“…A meta-analysis concluded that depictions of suicide in entertainment media may increase suicides and suicide attempts in the population [ 26 ▪ ].…”

Section: Social Contagion and Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

Social contagion, violence, and suicide among adolescents

Martínez

Jiménez-Molina

Gerber

2023

Current Opinion in Psychiatry

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Purpose of reviewSocial Contagion is defined as the spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through crowds and other types of social aggregates from one member to another. Adolescents are prone to social contagion because they may be especially susceptible to peer influence and social media.In this article, we provide a brief review of the most recent findings on social contagion, violence, and suicide among adolescents.Recent findingsRecent evidence support social contagion in gun violence, bullying, cyberbullying, violent offending, and suicide, but is inconclusive on the role of violent video game exposure on aggressive behavior.SummaryThe mechanisms underlying the contagion effect of violence and suicide are currently unclear. It has been argued that social learning, identification with significant others, and the normalization of specific norms play a role. All these mechanisms require understanding social contagion as a complex interaction between individual, relational and social factors. This is key if the social contagion perspective is to be used not only to investigate negative outcomes, but also as a framework for promoting prosocial attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, more research is needed on psychosocial interventions and public policies to minimize the potential spillover effect of violence and suicide.

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“…Most studies in the field focus on news reports, but some have focused on entertainment media (Niederkrotenthaler et al, 2021a) and social media including tweets (Sinyor et al, 2021; Ueda et al, 2017; Won et al, 2013). With regard to Twitter, a previous study specifically assessed social media contents in suicide-related tweets by high influencers (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association of 7 million+ tweets featuring suicide-related content with daily calls to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline and with suicides, United States, 2016–2018

Niederkrotenthaler

Tran

Baginski

et al. 2022

Aust N Z J Psychiatry

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Objective: The aim of this study was to assess associations of various content areas of Twitter posts with help-seeking from the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) and with suicides. Methods: We retrieved 7,150,610 suicide-related tweets geolocated to the United States and posted between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2018. Using a specially devised machine-learning approach, we categorized posts into content about prevention, suicide awareness, personal suicidal ideation without coping, personal coping and recovery, suicide cases and other. We then applied seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average analyses to assess associations of tweet categories with daily calls to the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) and suicides on the same day. We hypothesized that coping-related and prevention-related tweets are associated with greater help-seeking and potentially fewer suicides. Results: The percentage of posts per category was 15.4% (standard deviation: 7.6%) for awareness, 13.8% (standard deviation: 9.4%) for prevention, 12.3% (standard deviation: 9.1%) for suicide cases, 2.4% (standard deviation: 2.1%) for suicidal ideation without coping and 0.8% (standard deviation: 1.7%) for coping posts. Tweets about prevention were positively associated with Lifeline calls ( B = 1.94, SE = 0.73, p = 0.008) and negatively associated with suicides ( B = −0.11, standard error = 0.05, p = 0.038). Total number of tweets were negatively associated with calls ( B = −0.01, standard error = 0.0003, p = 0.007) and positively associated with suicide, ( B = 6.4 × 10−5, standard error = 2.6 × 10−5, p = 0.015). Conclusion: This is the first large-scale study to suggest that daily volume of specific suicide-prevention-related social media content on Twitter corresponds to higher daily levels of help-seeking behaviour and lower daily number of suicide deaths. Preregistration: As Predicted, #66922, 26 May 2021.

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Systematic review and meta-analyses of suicidal outcomes following fictional portrayals of suicide and suicide attempt in entertainment media

Cited by 21 publications

References 27 publications

Investigating the relationship between euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and rates of non-assisted suicide: systematic review

Investigating the relationship between euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and rates of non-assisted suicide: systematic review

Social contagion, violence, and suicide among adolescents

Association of 7 million+ tweets featuring suicide-related content with daily calls to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline and with suicides, United States, 2016–2018

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