How Do Recommended Elements in Suicide News Coverage Work? An Investigation of the Effect of Responsible Reporting and Readers’ Reflectiveness on Suicide Prevention

ABSTRACT

To examine the effect of positive elements in suicide reporting guidelines, we assessed how responsible reporting on suicide (RRS) affect cognitive and intentional responses. We also investigated the moderating role of audience reflectiveness in news processing. Here, 308 individuals participated in a single-factor between-subject experiment conducted in South Korea. We manipulated the number of positive RRS features in news articles by adding suicide statistics, contact information for helplines, and efficacy-enforcing information. Overall, news articles containing multiple RRS elements had a stronger impact on behavioral intentions to help others in a suicidal crisis than a basic news article without RRS elements. Interestingly, reflectiveness had a stronger influence on individuals who read a suicide news report having the most RRS elements relative to those who read suicide news without any RRS elements, signifying an indirect impact of suicide news on intentions to help. The implications of this RRS effect identified are discussed in terms of suicide prevention.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

All study methods were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Hallym University.

Additional information

Funding

FWO collaboration grant VS00519N and NRF grant No. [2018R1D1A1A02086036].