Online media reporting of suicidal behaviour in Ghana: Analysis of adherence to the WHO guidelines

Emmanuel Nii-Boye Quarshie, Johnny Andoh-Arthur, Kwaku Oppong Asante and Winifred Asare-Doku

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2021, vol. 67, issue 3, 251-259

Abstract: Background: Irresponsible media reporting of suicide is a potential risk for copycat suicide. There is a paucity of studies from sub-Saharan Africa on the quality of media reporting of suicide. Objectives: We assessed the compliance of Ghanaian online media outlets with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for media reporting of suicide. Methods: We searched 10 local media outlets with strong online presence in Ghana, to identify suicide-related news reports from 2000 through 2019. We applied summative content analysis and chi-square ( χ 2 ) test to the data. Results: We included 288 news reports, of which 261 (90.6%) were completed suicides, 7 (2.4%) were attempted suicides and 20 (6.9%) were homicide suicides. Most of the news reports failed to comply with the WHO guidelines: 92.7% mentioned the specific method of the suicide act, 82.6% included ‘suicide’ in the headline and 55.6% included photos of the victims. The χ 2 tests indicated that privately owned media outlets were more likely than publicly owned to post a photo of the victim, χ 2 ( 1 )  = 17.37, p  

Keywords: Attempted suicide; completed suicide; Ghana; online media; sub-Saharan Africa; suicide reporting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:67:y:2021:i:3:p:251-259

DOI: 10.1177/0020764020919787

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