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Abstract
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The WHO report on suicide (2014)[1] states that the sensitive portrayal of suicide in media is an important suicide prevention strategy.
The impact of sensational reporting of suicide and the subsequent increase in suicide rates was first studied by Philips.[2] He found suicide rates to be higher in the months where the U.S press had front-page articles on suicide, compared to months where there were no such articles. He coined the term “Werther effect.”
The term has its origins in Goethe's 1774 novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” which was loosely based on a love affair in his own life. The novel depicts a young man called Werther who falls in love with a woman whom he cannot marry because she hails from higher strata and was already engaged. As a consequence, Werther takes his own life. When the book was released in Europe, a series of suicides followed, and there was strong evidence that the book had influenced a number of individuals in their final act. Some were dressed in a similar fashion to Werther, some used a pistol to take their own lives just as Werther had done, and some were found with a copy of the book at the scene of their death. Hence, the book was banned.
Since Phillip's study,[2] there have been numerous studies which have confirmed the association between reporting of individual suicides in the news media and an increase in suicide rates ...
Language: en |