@article{ref1,
title="A Google-based approach for monitoring suicide risk",
journal="Psychiatry research",
year="2016",
author="Solano, Paola and Ustulin, Morena and Pizzorno, Enrico and Vichi, Monica and Pompili, Maurizio and Serafini, Gianluca and Amore, Mario",
volume="246",
number="",
pages="581-586",
abstract="People seeking information and news regarding suicide are likely to use the Internet. However, evidence of the relationship between suicide-related search volumes and national suicide-rates in different countries can be strikingly different. We aimed to investigate the relationship between suicide-rates and Google suicide-related search volumes in the Italian population (2008-2012) using the Italian mortality database that provided monthly national data concerning suicides (2008-2012). Moreover, this study aimed to identify future trends of national suicide rates on the basis of the results we obtained concerning the period 2013-14. Google Trends provided data of online monthly search-volumes of the term &quot;suicide&quot;, &quot;commit suicide&quot; and &quot;how to commit suicide&quot; in Google Search and Google News (2008-2014). Google Search volumes for the term &quot;suicide&quot; lags suicide by three months (ρ=0.482, p-value<0.001), whereas no correlation was found between search volumes for &quot;commit suicide&quot; and &quot;how to commit suicide&quot; and national suicide rates. Google News search volumes for the three terms resulted in white noise. Apparently, online searches for suicide-related terms in Italy are more likely to be linked to factors other than suicidiality such as personal interest and suicide bereavement.<br><br>Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0165-1781",
doi="10.1016/j.psychres.2016.10.030",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.10.030"
}