Every year in the month of September, National Suicide Prevention Week is celebrated. The goal of suicide prevention week is to inform the public about suicide prevention, primarily the warning signs of suicide. However, the impact of this month on the general population is unknown. The Google trends show how frequent web searches have been performed for a particular search-term, which provide an approximation of the people’s interest.

To evaluate public interest in suicide prevention by analyzing the google trends of “Suicide Prevention” search-term.

We estimated the interest in such topics by running the google trends data of the last decade by using the filter [Search Term:“Suicide Prevention”, Locations: “United States” and Time Ranges “ 2010 to 2020”].

During this specific interval, people have searched “Suicide Prevention” most frequently during the month of September (month of National Suicide Prevention week). Conversely, in the other months, interest in “suicide prevention” fluctuated between little to none. The only other time people have shown interest in Suicide prevention, other than the month of September, was with suicide news in the media, such as the death of a celebrity by suicide, or suicide-related TV shows. [Figure]

Although it is not definitive, it gives some idea that National Suicide Prevention week has a considerable impact on population interest. Since we did not observe sufficient public interest in other months, there should be frequent and systematic efforts to spread suicide prevention awareness among the general population.

The number of mental health-related 999 calls to emergency services has increased in recent years. However, emergency services staff have an unfavourable reputation when it comes to supporting people experiencing mental health problems.

To assess the levels of explicit and implicit mental health stigma among accident and emergency, ambulance and police staff, and draw comparisons with the general population. Additional analyses sought to identify which variables predict mental health stigma among emergency services staff.

A cross-sectional survey of 1837 participants, comprising four independent groups (accident and emergency, ambulance and police staff, and the general population).

Levels of mental health stigma across all four groups were lower than those reported in recent surveys of the general population by the ‘Time to Change’ campaign. Within this study, explicit levels of mental health stigma were lower among the general population compared with emergency services staff. There was no difference between emergency service professions, nor were there any between-group differences in terms of implicit mental health stigma. The only consistent predictors of mental health stigma were attitudes and future behavioural intentions, whereby increased stigma was predicted by increased fear, reduced sympathy and greater intended discrimination.

Our findings suggest that levels of mental health stigma have improved over time, but there is room for improvement in emergency services staff. Interventions to improve mental health stigma may be most effective if, in line with the cognitive–behavioural model of stigma, they target attitudes and behavioural intentions.

Stigma related to mental health is a major barrier to help-seeking resulting in a large treatment gap in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). This study assessed changes in knowledge, attitude and behaviour, and stigma related to help-seeking among participants exposed to an anti-stigma campaign.

The campaign, using multi-media interventions, was part of the SMART Mental Health Project, conducted for 3 months, across 42 villages in rural Andhra Pradesh, in South India. Mixed-methods evaluation was conducted in two villages using a pre-post design.

A total of 1576 and 2100 participants were interviewed, at pre- and post-intervention phases of the campaign. Knowledge was not increased. Attitudes and behaviours improved significantly (p < 0.01). Stigma related to help-seeking reduced significantly (p < 0.05). Social contact and drama were the most beneficial interventions identified during qualitative interviews.

The results showed that the campaign was beneficial and led to improvement of attitude and behaviours related to mental health and reduction in stigma related to help-seeking. Social contact was the most effective intervention. The study had implications for future research in LMIC.