The Impact of Suicide Prevention Messages in Newspaper Articles: An Online Randomized Controlled Trial
- Conditions
- Suicidal ideation measured by Subscale Survival and Coping beliefs (Reasons for Living Inventory)R45Symptoms and signs involving emotional state
- Registration Number
- DRKS00028030
- Lead Sponsor
- Medizinische Universität Wien
- Brief Summary
There has been a debate about the suitability of different narratives in educative suicide prevention materials. Whereas some suicide prevention experts recommend raising awareness of suicide by highlighting its prevalence, others argue that this approach may normalize suicide and advocate focusing on help resources instead. Unfortunately, empirical evidence regarding this question is lacking. This randomized controlled trial aimed to test the impact of educative news articles that conveyed different narratives of suicide prevention. One article focused on the prevalence of suicide, one article highlighted professional help resources, and one article emphasized on how everyone can help to prevent suicide. We randomized n = 334 participants to read either one of these three articles or an article unrelated to suicide. Data on suicidal ideation, stigmatizing attitudes toward suicidal individuals, attitudes toward suicide prevention, and help-seeking intentions were collected with questionnaires, and implicit measures were used to assess participants’ mental accessibility of concepts related to suicide and suicide prevention. Participants exposed to the article highlighting the high prevalence of suicide tended to show a higher accessibility of potentially detrimental cognitive concepts related to suicide. In contrast, the accessibility of the concept of “helping” and that “suicide is preventable” was higher in participants’ memory when exposed to materials focusing on help. It seems that the impact of educative suicide awareness materials on readers’ access to suicide- and suicide-prevention-related concepts in memory varied depending on the narrative featured in the article.
- Detailed Description
Not available
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- Complete
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 346
18 years and over
did not read the patient information,
under the age of 18,
already took part in this survey,
did not agree to take part in this survey
Study & Design
- Study Type
- interventional
- Study Design
- Not specified
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method