Investigating the impact of parallel media engagement initiatives on suicide reporting in Canada and Israel.

IF 3.6 2区医学 Q1 PSYCHIATRY

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Pub Date : 2025-04-07 DOI:10.1007/s00127-025-02886-4

Mark Sinyor, Daniella Ekstein, Prudence Po Ming Chan, Yu Vera Men, Racheli Starostintzki Malonek, Ayal Schaffer, Thomas Niederkrotenthaler, Marnin J Heisel, Benjamin I Goldstein, Donald A Redelmeier, Paul Taylor, Rachel Mitchell, Rosalie Steinberg, Yossi Levi-Belz

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Abstract

Purpose: To contrast changes in suicide-related media reporting quality during parallel initiatives to engage national media in Canada and Israel.

Methods: We coded media articles in Canada's and Israel's highest circulating newspapers (major broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, respectively) for putatively harmful and putatively protective suicide-related content. A sample of 150 articles (30/year) from each country was randomly selected for three time points: 2012 (T1; prior to media engagement), 2016-2017 (T2; early media engagement), and 2018-2019 (T3; late media engagement). Chi-square tests and binary logistic regression investigated overall between-country differences in reporting quality over time.

Results: Following media engagement, adherence to guidelines improved over time in both countries for most variables. Over time, fewer Canadian and more Israeli articles covered celebrity suicide (OR = 4.97; 95%CI 1.68-16.69); more Canadian and fewer Israeli articles covered warning signs for suicide (OR = 0.30; 95%CI 0.12-0.78). Comparing articles over the entire timespan (T1-T3), a higher proportion of Israeli tabloid articles included putatively harmful content, such as mentioning suicide means (Israel: 65.3% vs. Canada 25.3%, χ²(1) = 48.4, p < 0.001), and a higher proportion of Canadian broadsheet articles included putatively protective content, such as providing information on intervention (Israel: 2.0% vs. Canada 27.3%, χ²(1) = 38.5, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Media engagement appeared to confer benefits in both countries and publication formats. A higher proportion of Canadian articles adhered to several specific recommendations. Our findings must be interpreted in the context of differences in format between major Canadian and Israeli newspapers (broadsheet vs. tabloid) and the much higher total volume of suicide-related articles in Canada.

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来源期刊

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 医学-精神病学

CiteScore

8.50

自引率

2.30%

发文量

184

审稿时长

3-6 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology is intended to provide a medium for the prompt publication of scientific contributions concerned with all aspects of the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders - social, biological and genetic. In addition, the journal has a particular focus on the effects of social conditions upon behaviour and the relationship between psychiatric disorders and the social environment. Contributions may be of a clinical nature provided they relate to social issues, or they may deal with specialised investigations in the fields of social psychology, sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, health service research, health economies or public mental health. We will publish papers on cross-cultural and trans-cultural themes. We do not publish case studies or small case series. While we will publish studies of reliability and validity of new instruments of interest to our readership, we will not publish articles reporting on the performance of established instruments in translation. Both original work and review articles may be submitted.