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Citation
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Singh R, Mahato S, Khadka S, Basnet P, Bista K, Karki R, Arafat SMY. Health Sci. Rep. 2022; 5(2): e547. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND:Sensible media reporting of suicide is a population‐based suicide pre-vention strategy. However, the quality of media reporting of suicide has not beenassessed in Nepal.
OBJECTIVES:We aimed to assess the newspaper reporting status of suicide inNepal with reference to World Health Organization (WHO) media guidelines forsuicide reporting.
METHOD:We retrospectively searched eight major newspapers in Nepal betweenJanuary 2020 and May 2021 and assessed 167 news reports against WHO suicidereporting guidelines.
RESULTS:Potentially harmful characteristics were found to be reported in boththe title and main text of the reports. About half of them mentioned sex (48.5%)and 38.3% mentioned the location of suicide in the title. Of the 167 reports,74.3%, 95.2%, 34.7%, 92.2%, 98.8%, and 52.7% mentioned the name, sex, oc-cupation, method of suicide, the locationofsuicide,andlifeevents,respec-tively, in their main content. On the other hand, only 6% and 2.4% of reportsmentioned linkage of suicides with mental illness and substance abuse,respectively. While lesser than 1% of reports narrated educative informationregarding suicide prevention, none mentioned contact information for help‐seeking for the vulnerable.
CONCLUSION:Newspaper reporting of suicide in Nepal poorly adheres to WHOguidelines, substantiated by the high presence of potentially harmful characteristicsand negligible presence of potentially helpful characteristics.KEYWORDSanalysis, guideline adherence, Nepal, newspaper article, prevention and control, suicide, WorldHealth Organization
Language: en |