Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wbk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-14T00:54:18.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Do Newspaper Reports of Coroners' Inquests Incite People to Commit Suicide?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

B. Barraclough
Affiliation:
MRC Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 4PQ
D. Shepherd
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Social Administration, University of Southampton, SO9 5NH
C. Jennings
Affiliation:
MRC Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 4PQ

Abstract

A statistical association has been found between reports of suicide inquests in a local paper and the subsequent suicide of men under 45 years.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1977 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barraclough, B. (1976) Time of day chosen for suicide. Psychological Medicine, 6, 303–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blumenthal, S. & Bergner, L. (1973) Suicide and newspapers: a replicated study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 468–71.Google Scholar
Cox, D. R. & Lewis, P. A. W. (1966) The Statistical Analysis of Series of Events, p 247. London: Methuen Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1897) Le Suicide. Paris. Translated 1952 as Suicide: A Study in Sociology by Spaulding, J. A. and Simpson, C., pp 140–1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Google Scholar
Evening Newspaper Advertising Bureau Ltd (1975) Where? pp 90–1. London.Google Scholar
Farr, W. (1841) Third Annual Report of the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriage in England (for 1839–40), p 82. London: HMSO Google Scholar
Hewitt, D. & Milner, J. (1974) Drug-related deaths in the United States—first decade of an epidemic. Health Services Reports, 89, 211–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holding, T. & Barraclough, B. (1975) Psychiatric morbidity in a sample of a London coroner's open verdicts. British Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 133–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, S., Bagley, C. & Rehin, A. (1976) Clinical and social variables which differentiate suicide, open and accident verdicts. Psychological Medicine, 6, 417–22.Google Scholar
Lancet (1969) Suicide and the press. ii, 731–2.Google Scholar
Motto, J. A. (1967) Suicide and suggestibility—the role of the press. American Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 156–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Motto, J. A. (1970) Newspaper influence on suicide. Archives of General Psychiatry, 23, 143–8.Google Scholar
Niemi, T. (1975) The time-space distances of suicides committed in the lock-up in Finland in 1963–67. Psychiatria Fennica, 267–70.Google Scholar
Phillips, D. P. (1974) The influence of suggestion on suicide: substantive and theoretical implications of the Werther effect. American Sociological Review, 39, 340–54.Google Scholar
Surtees, S. J., Taylor, D. C. & Cooper, R. W. (1976) Suicide and accidental death at Beachy Head. Eastbourne Medical Gazette, 2, 22–4.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.