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Most homeless subjects with psychosis attending a psychiatric emergency service were already identified as suffering from a severe mental illness, suggesting that homelessness was a consequence of a break in contact with mental health services. Since homelessness is incompatible with the adequate management of psychosis, strategies have to be developed in mental health organisations in combination with outside partnerships, to drastically reduce the frequency of this condition in subjects with psychosis.

Background Werther effect is a type of suicide contagion by which the media coverage following the suicide of a famous person entails a signifi cant increase in the number of suicides. Our objective was to determine whether such an effect had been already experienced in France, where the phenomenon has never been documented. Our hypothesis was that there was a signifi cant increase in the national number of suicides following (+1 month) a celebrity suicide. Methods We obtained French daily data on suicides from 1979 to 2006 from the CepiDC (INSERM). We selected the six most famous celebrities whose suicide occurred within this period. They were those whose name appeared at least 100 000 times in a popular web search engine. Data were analysed using the Seasonal ARIMA model. Results Pierre Beregovoy (politician) and Kurt Cobain (musician) suicides were followed by a signifi cant increase in the number of suicides in the French general population (+17.7% and +9.2% respectively). Dalida (singer) suicide had a significant effect among people aged from 45 to 59 only and Soeur