ArticleThe International journal of social psychiatry2021
Online media reporting of suicidal behaviour in Ghana: Analysis of adherence to the WHO guidelines.
Article in The International journal of social psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Investigating the impact of parallel media engagement initiatives on suicide reporting in Canada and Israel.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Copycat in Suicide: A Systematic Review of the Literature.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- Changes in Media Reporting Quality and Suicides Following National Media Engagement on Responsible Reporting of Suicide in Canada: Changements de la Qualité des reportages dans les médias sur les suicides suite à l'engagement des médias nationaux à la déclaration responsable du suicide au Canada.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2024Observational
- Nigerian newspapers coverage of suicide: Assessment of adherence to WHO suicide reporting guidelines.Indian journal of psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIrresponsible media reporting of suicide is a potential risk for copycat suicide. There is a paucity of studies from sub-Saharan Africa on the quality of media reporting of suicide.
objectivesWe assessed the compliance of Ghanaian online media outlets with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for media reporting of suicide.
methodsWe searched 10 local media outlets with strong online presence in Ghana, to identify suicide-related news reports from 2000 through 2019. We applied summative content analysis and chi-square
resultsWe included 288 news reports, of which 261 (90.6%) were completed suicides, 7 (2.4%) were attempted suicides and 20 (6.9%) were homicide suicides. Most of the news reports failed to comply with the WHO guidelines: 92.7% mentioned the specific method of the suicide act, 82.6% included 'suicide' in the headline and 55.6% included photos of the victims. The
conclusionRegardless of the ownership of the media outlet (whether private or publicly owned), mostly, the online reportage of suicidal behaviour in Ghana deviates sharply from the international recommended best practice by the WHO.
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Registered trials
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