Quality of Newspaper Reporting of Suicide in Kashmir: Adherence to World Health Organization Guidelines

Abstract

Background: Sensible media reporting of suicide is one of the important prevention strategies. However, there has been no report assessing the quality of media reporting of suicide in Kashmir, India. Aim: We aimed to assess the quality of newspaper reporting of suicide in Kashmir, India against the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting guidelines. Methods: We searched the available contents in four English and two Urdu newspapers of Jammu Kashmir and assessed the adherence to the WHO media guidelines. We collected the reports between 25 January 2016 and 18 September 2020. Results: A total of 152 reports were scrutinized. Almost all the reports mentioned the name of the person and the method of suicide (99.34%), occupation (85.53%) of the person. The life events were mentioned in 35.53% of the reports. Among the reports, 38.82% explained suicide on the basis of the monocausality, and 3.95% mentioned suicide notes. Only 3.29% of reports had traced mental illness, and none of the reports mentioned evidence of substance abuse. Only three reports mentioned expert opinion, and none of the reports mentioned any research findings, statistics, prevention programs, educational information, and contact information for help. Conclusion:The study revealed that news reports of suicide in Kashmir adhere poorly to the WHO media reporting guidelines. Identifying information of the deceased was explicitly mentioned in almost every report while almost none of the reports mentioned educational information.Suicide is a major public health problem throughout the world. Media has a double-edged role (protective and harmful) on suicidal behavior of the general

Quality of media reporting of suicide in Iraq

“…We used an instrument that was structured and utilized in previous studies assessing the quality of media reports in Bangladesh and a part of India (Arafat et al, 2019; Shoib & Arafat, 2021). The instrument followed the WHO media guidelines for reporting suicides (WHO, 2017).…”

“…There are different guidelines given by international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) for media professionals across the world (WHO, 2017) to reduce inappropriate reporting. The poor adherence to the media reporting guidelines on suicide is reported in the majority of the countries, globally including the Muslim prominent countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Egypt (Arafat, Kar, et al, 2020; Arafat, Menon, et al, 2020; Arafat, Shoib, et al, 2020; Kamboh & Ittefak, 2019; Mesbah, 2014; Nisa et al, 2020; Shoib & Arafat, 2021).…”

Quality of Online Media Reporting of Suicidal Behavior in Iran during COVID-19 pandemic in Reference to the World Health Organization Guidelines

“…Our study findings broadly concur with few available reports on media suicide reporting trends from Muslim nations (Arafat and others, 2022;Arafat and others, 2019;Mesbah, 2014;Nisa and others, 2020;Komboh and Ittefaq, 2019) and suggest a need for remedial measures though elsewhere, the quality of media reporting of suicide appears to be improving (McTernan and others, 2018). Use of detailed language to describe the identity of the person such as name (40%) and occupation of the method (49.6%) was a common practice; these figures are lesser compared to reports from Kashmir, Indonesia, and Bangladesh (Shoib and Arafat, 2021;Nisa andothers, 2020, Arafat andothers, 2020b) comparable to studies from other South Asian countries (Arafat and others, 2021), and much higher than developed nations. Likewise, frequency of reporting violations such as mentioning the name (88.8%) and details (48.8%) of the suicide method were comparable with figures from Muslim nations namely, Egypt, Indonesia, and Bangladesh (Mesbah, 2014;Arafat and others, 2019;Nisa and others, 2020).…”

Newspaper reporting of suicide in Nepal: Quality assessment against World Health Organization media guidelines

“…We checked both potentially harmful and helpful characteristics as per the WHO guidelines. The instrument has already been used in various studies in different countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand 13–17 . Potentially harmful characteristics include name, age, sex of the deceased, place, mode, attributed cause, pictorial presentation of suicide, life event related to suicide, and a suicide note.…”

“…The instrument has already been used in various studies in different countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand. [13][14][15][16][17] Potentially harmful characteristics include name, age, sex of the deceased, place, mode, attributed cause, pictorial presentation of suicide, life event related to suicide, and a suicide note. Whereas potentially helpful information targeting the prevention like help-seeking behavior and services were extracted as outcome variables.…”