Citation

Niederkrotenthaler T, Haider A, Till B, Mok K, Pirkis J. Crisis 2016; 38(2): 131-135.

Affiliation

The University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, International Association for Suicide Prevention, Publisher Hogrefe Publishing)

DOI

10.1027/0227-5910/a000432

PMID

27733060

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that suicidal individuals who use the Internet for suicide-related purposes are more suicidal than nonsuicide-related users, but evidence from European countries is lacking. AIMS: We assessed differences between suicidal individuals who go online for suicide-related purposes and other suicidal individuals in Austria.

METHOD: Participants were 53 individuals aged between 18 and 24 years who felt suicidal in the past year and completed an anonymous online survey.

RESULTS: Individuals who went online for suicide-related purposes were more suicidal, and more depressed, compared with individuals who did not use the Internet for suicide-related purposes. There were no large differences with regard to social anxiety and perceived barriers for help-seeking between the two groups.

CONCLUSION: This study finds that suicidal online users are more depressed and suicidal than nonusers in a sample from Central Europe. Online interventions to combat depression and suicidality need to be strengthened to reach out to this important target population.

Language: en