The Tool for Evaluating Media Portrayals of Suicide (TEMPOS): Development and Application of a Novel Rating Scale to Reduce Suicide Contagion

Abstract

Research suggests that media adherence to suicide reporting recommendations in the aftermath of a highly publicized suicide event can help reduce the risk of imitative behavior, yet there exists no standardized tool for assessing adherence to these standards. The Tool for Evaluating Media Portrayals of Suicide (TEMPOS) allows media professionals, researchers, and suicide prevention experts to assess adherence to the recommendations with a user-friendly, standardized rating scale. An interdisciplinary team of raters constructed operational definitions for three levels of adherence to each of the reporting recommendations and piloted the scale on a sample of articles to assess reliability and clarify scale definitions. TEMPOS was then used to evaluate 220 news articles published during a high-risk period following the suicide deaths of two public figures. Post-hoc analyses of the results demonstrated how data produced by TEMPOS can be used to inform research and public health efforts, and inter-rater reliability analyses revealed substantial agreement across raters and criteria. A novel, wide-reaching, and practical approach to suicide prevention, TEMPOS allows researchers, suicide prevention professionals, and media professionals to study how adherence varies across contexts and can be used to guide future efforts to decrease the risk of media-induced suicide contagion.

Quantifying suicide contagion at population scale

“…A similar difference is also seen in the larger magnitude increases of the contagion parameters ϵ and τ, although not the β parameter. This divergence in response may reflect differences in communication and media attention following each event ( 29 , 30 ), the level of population connection with the decedent, and the demographic composition of the communities most impacted by the event. It is important to note that because the model system describing suicide contagion is nonlinear, a doubling of excess suicide deaths does not necessitate a doubling of the nonlinear parameter estimates.…”

Social Contagion, from Suicide to Online Challenges to Eating Disorders: Current Research and Harm Mitigation Strategies for Youth Online

“…One of these is the "Tool for Evaluating Media Portrayals of Suicide," or TEMPOS, published in 2022. TEMPOS was developed to be a rating tool that both acknowledges complexities in discussions and reporting around suicide and provides guidance to media professionals on how they can make their reporting safer (Sorensen et al 2022).…”