2946 – Suicide Prevention and Media in Hungary

Abstract

Background:

Internet and media can play an important role in suicide prevention. in Hungary the suicide rate is the second highest in the European Union. in spite of this fact, in Hungary the first guideline on media coverage of suicide was only published in March 2012. The Suicide Prevention by Internet and Media Based Mental Health Promotion (SUPREME) project aims to develop an Internet based suicide prevention intervention. in the first part of SUPREME project the goal was to obtain an overview of the already existing suicide prevention websites. The current presentation aims the show the Hungarian data.

Methods:

The first thirty search hits was examined using the Google search engine between March 21–25, 2011 on the keyword “suicide” in Hungarian (“öngyilkosság”). Coding of the website was made according to the following categories: type of content, sender, form of communication, age group.

Results:

Type of content was: direct preventive: 25% (n = 6), scientific: 30% (n = 9), news: 23.33%, (n = 7), pro-suicide: 0% (n = 0), other (i.e.: forum, video): 26.67%, (n = 8). Among direct preventive websites the sender was: governmental bodies: 0% (n = 0); non-government organizations: 33.33% (n = 2); corporations: 0% (n = 0); private senders: 66.67% (n = 4); Form of communication was: monological: 33.33% (n = 2); semi-dialogical: 16.67% (n = 1); dialogical: 50% (n = 3); Age group was: children/adolescents: 16.67% (n = 1); young adults: 0% (n = 0), adults/elderly: 83.33% (n = 5).

Conclusions:

Our results highlight the importance of developing Hungarian suicide preventive websites, especially for children, adolescents and young adults. The good news is, that during the study period there wasn’t found any Hungarian pro-suicide website.