Abstract

ACOSTA ARTILES, Francisco Javier; RODRIGUEZ RODRIGUEZ-CARO, Carlos Jesús  and  CEJAS MENDEZ, María Rosario. Reporting on Suicide. WHO recommendations for the Media. Rev. Esp. Salud Publica [online]. 2017, vol.91, e201710040.  Epub Oct 24, 2017. ISSN 2173-9110.

Inappropriate reporting on suicide in the media may lead to a contagious effect or “Werther effect”, while appropriate characteristics may have a protective effect or “Papageno effect”. Therefore, the media can contribute to the prevention of suicide. For this reason, the WHO has developed three documents with recommendations for media professionals about how to report on suicide. However, only the first one has been translated into Spanish, they have overlaps and have a different structure. Therefore, Spanish-speaking media professionals in general, and Spanish ones in particular, can hardly have access to these WHO recommendations displayed in a clear and concise manner. The objective of this work was the elaboration and provision of a single and concise text that includes the recommendations of these documents. A formal and structured procedure was followed, combining scientific and linguistic criteria. The final text contains the recommendations grouped into three categories: “what to do”, “what not to do” and “other recommendations”. This document can be very useful for media professionals, for training activities to disseminate such recommendations for preventive purposes, and for research.

Keywords : Suicide/prevention & control; Risk Factors; Mass media; Imitative Behavior; Guidelines as Topic; World Health Organization; Contagion effect; Werther effect; Protective effect; Papageno effect.

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