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Citation
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Armstrong G, Haregu T, Arya V, Vijayakumar L, Sinyor M, Niederkrotenthaler T, Spittal MJ. World Psychiatry 2021; 20(1): 143-144. |
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Abstract
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On June 14, 2020, media reported that Sushant Singh Rajput, a 34‐year‐old male Bollywood star, had died by suicide. He had starred in television and cinema for over a decade, with highly prominent roles that reached a broad cross‐section of the community, including playing the Indian cricket team captain M.S. Dhoni in a blockbuster 2016 biographical film.
This suicide has generated widespread media coverage, including reports about hanging as the suicide method and the actor’s struggle with depression. The event has sparked immediate concerns about possible imitation suicides. Due to the long delays in the release of suicide data, it may take some time before we are able to assess any impact on suicidal behaviour. However, it is possible to assess how the public responded in terms of online searching behaviours.
Social learning plays an important role in suicide. The Werther effect hypothesizes that a suicide can become a stimulus for subsequent imitation suicides, which can be exacerbated in cases of celebrity suicide and by irresponsible media reporting. A recent meta‐analysis1 estimated that the risk of suicide increased by 13% in the period after media reports of celebrity suicide; when the suicide method was reported in the media, there was an associated 30% increase in deaths by the same method, highlighting that media ought to be highly cautious in this regard.
On the other hand, the Papageno effect hypothesizes that media can report on suicide in ways that stimulate protective effects. Research has primarily examined the protective effects of reporting on people who have been suicidal and have drawn on internal or external resources to avoid progressing to an attempt2, but it is recommended that media can assist in more ways, such as highlighting the role that mental ill‐health can play in suicide crises and the supports that are available3.
A substantial amount of social learning now happens online, and suicide research has recently been focusing on Internet search queries as one component of understanding online social learning exposures and interest in a topic ...
Language: en |