ArticlePloS one2017
Media effects on suicide methods: A case study on Hong Kong 1998-2005.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Association between suicide reporting in the media and suicide: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Pooled it
- Assisted suicide in Austria: implications for media reporting.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2026Review
- Young adult perspectives on media content related to suicide in South India: a qualitative study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Article
- Suicide in the press: an analysis of newspaper coverage of adolescent versus adult suicides in Italy.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2024Article
- Perceptions towards charcoal-burning suicide and the surge of this lethal method in Taiwan.PloS one · 2022Article
- Suicide by poisoning in Pakistan: review of regional trends, toxicity and management of commonly used agents in the past three decades.BJPsych open · 2021Article
- Article
- Online media reporting of suicidal behaviour in Ghana: Analysis of adherence to the WHO guidelines.The International journal of social psychiatry · 2021Article
- The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
- "It's a battle for eyeballs and suicide is clickbait": The media experience of suicide reporting in India.PloS one · 2020Article
- Article
- Copycats in Pilot Aircraft-Assisted Suicides after the Germanwings Incident.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPrevious studies have suggested that mass media's reports of new suicide methods will increase suicides using the same method. The same pattern seems not to apply to a conventional suicide method, unless it was used by a celebrity.
objective1) to examine media effects on both new and non-new suicide methods during 1998 and 2005 in Hong Kong (HK), when a new method by burning charcoal (CB suicide) was spreading in the region. 2) to examine how CB competed with non-CB methods in terms of media coverage and "recruiting" suicidal persons in the socio-economic context.
methodsA self- and mutual- exciting process model was fitted to the data, adjusting for divorce rate, unemployment rate, and property price index. Breaking the whole period into onset, peak, and post-peak stages, the model was fitted again to examine the differences.
resultsComparable copycat effects were found on both CB and non-CB suicide news. The only cross-method media effects were found in the onset stage when non-CB suicide news showed suppressing effect on CB suicides. CB suicides reported a significant self-excitation effect. A higher divorce rate and lower property price index were associated with significantly more suicides incidences and more suicide news.
conclusionsThe emerging of CB suicide method did not substitute media coverage of non-CB suicide in HK. Media effects in this case were not limited to new suicide method or celebrity suicide. The effects were further fueled by adverse socio-economic conditions.
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