Abstract
Media guidelines on safe suicide-related reporting are within the suicide prevention armamentarium. However, implementation issues beleaguer real-world practice. This study evaluated the perspectives of the Malaysian media community, persons with lived experience of suicidal behavior (PLE), and mental health professionals (MHP) on suicide-related reporting in terms of the impact, strategies, challenges, and the implementation of guidelines on safe reporting. Three focus group discussions of purposively sampled Malaysian media practitioners (n = 8), PLE (n = 6), and MHP (n = 7) were audio-recorded, transcribed, coded and thematically analyzed. Inclusion criteria were: English fluency, no clinical depression or suicidal ideation (current), no recent previous suicide attempts or suicide bereavement. Three major themes emerged: (1) Unsafe Reporting; (2) Impact; and (3) Safe Reporting. Most described current reporting as unsafe by being potentially triggering to media users and may contribute to contagion effect. Positive impacts identified included raised awareness toward suicide and its prevention. Unsafe reporting was attributed to inadequate awareness, knowledge, and guidance, lack of empathy and accountability, job-related factors, popularity-seeking, lack of monitoring and governance, and information source(s) with unsafe content. Majority agreed on how suicide stories should be framed to produce a safe report. The media community diverged on how detailed a suicide story should be. Safe reporting challenges included difficulties in balancing beneficial versus harmful details, social media ubiquity and its citizen reporters. Participants suggested these safe reporting strategies: stakeholder engagement, educational approaches, improving governance and surveillance, and guidelines revision. Most acknowledged the relevance of guidelines but were unaware of the existence of local guidelines. Implementation challenges included the dilemma in balancing media industry needs vis-à-vis safe reporting requirements, stakeholder engagement difficulties and social media regulation. There is poor awareness regarding safe suicide-related reporting across all groups. PLE and MHP were negatively impacted by current unsafe messaging which aggravated trauma and grief reactions. Postvention support gaps for mental health professionals were highlighted. Safe reporting promotion strategies should include stakeholder engagement to increase awareness on minimizing Werther and maximizing Papageno effects. Strategic re-examination and dissemination of local media guidelines to address new media issues, and effective surveillance mechanisms, are crucial in sustainable improvement of safe reporting practices.
Highlights
The reporting and portrayal of suicide in the media has significant societal and public health implications (Ng et al, 2021)
Two people who gave informed consent were excluded from study participation - one was unable to attend the focus group discussions (FGDs) due to an upperrespiratory tract infection, and the other person screened positive for suicidal thoughts in the 2 weeks prior to the FGD based on item-9 of the PHQ-9
There seemed to be a low level of awareness with regards to existing local media guidelines on safe reporting of suicide-related content amongst the media, mental health professionals and people with lived experience of suicidal behavior
Summary
The reporting and portrayal of suicide in the media has significant societal and public health implications (Ng et al, 2021). In view of the potentially harmful and protective effects of suicide-reporting, media guidelines have been developed based on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommendations as a reference point for safe and responsible reporting of suicide (Beautrais et al, 2008). Such guidelines have been implemented worldwide with varying degrees of success in terms of acceptance and enforcement (Bohanna and Wang, 2012). More than a decade later, suicide reporting practices in Malaysia remain largely incongruent to recommendations in the guidelines (Johari et al, 2017; Chan et al, 2018; Victor et al, 2019)
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