Citation

Niederkrotenthaler T, Fu KW, Yip PS, Fong DY, Stack S, Cheng Q, Pirkis J. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2012; 66(11): 1037-1042.

Affiliation

Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/jech-2011-200707

PMID

22523342

Abstract

BackgroundA growing number of studies indicate that sensationalist reporting of suicide is associated with increases in suicide rates, but in the light of some negative findings, the issue has remained controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the best current evidence on the association between celebrity suicide stories and subsequent suicides.MethodsLiterature searches of six data sources (Medline, Psychlit, Communication Abstracts, Education Resources Information Center, Dissertation Abstracts and Australian Public Affairs Database (APAIS)) were conducted. Studies were included if they (1) adopted an ecological design, (2) focused on celebrity suicide, (3) had completed suicide as outcome variable, (4) analysed suicide rates across all suicide methods, (5) used data from after World War II and (6) satisfied basic quality criteria.Results10 studies with totally 98 suicides by celebrities met the criteria. The pooled estimate indicated a change in suicide rates (suicides per 100 000 population) of 0.26 (95% CI 0.09 to 0.43) in the month after a celebrity suicide. There was substantial heterogeneity between studies, which was explained by the type of celebrity (entertainment elite vs others) and the region of study, as indicated by mixed-effects meta-regression. The region-of-study-specific effect of reporting a suicide by an entertainment celebrity was 0.64 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.73) in North America, 0.58 (95% CI 0.47 to 0.68) in Asia, 0.36 (95% CI -0.10 to 0.61) in Australia and 0.68 (95% CI 0.51 to 0.85) in Europe. There was no indication of publication bias.ConclusionsReports on celebrity suicide are associated with increases in suicides. Study region and celebrity type appear to have an impact on the effect size.

Language: en