IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v67y2021i5p453-460.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is there any link between celebrity suicide and further suicidal behaviour in India?

Author

Listed:
  • Vikas Menon
  • Sujita Kumar Kar
  • Marthoenis Marthoenis
  • SM Yasir Arafat
  • Ginni Sharma
  • Charanya Kaliamoorthy
  • Ramdas Ransing
  • Srijeeta Mukherjee
  • Jigyansa Ipsita Pattnaik
  • Nikhilesh B Shirahatti
  • Natarajan Varadharajan
  • Susanta Kumar Padhy

Abstract

Background: Little is known about the factors that determine vulnerability to subsequent suicide in the community following a celebrity suicide. Our objective was to investigate the link between an alleged celebrity suicide and further suicidal behaviour in the community in India. Methods: Relevant news articles that reported suicidal behaviour in the population were retrieved from online news portals of regional and English language newspapers in the immediate month following the actor’s death. A deductive analysis of the retrieved suicide news articles was carried out using a pre-designed data extraction form. Results: A total of 1160 relevant news articles were identified from the local language ( n  = 985) and English ( n  = 175) newspapers. For a sizeable percentage of these reports ( n  = 65, 5.6%), the media reported links with celebrity suicide. Odds of subsequent suicide among young (Odds Ratios [OR] – 9.24), female (OR – 1.94), unemployed (OR – 7.26), those without precipitating life events (OR – 2.94) or mental illness (OR – 1.69) were higher among those with link to celebrity suicide; likewise, odds of death by hanging (OR – 49.84) and leaving a suicide note (OR – 2.03) were higher among those linked to celebrity suicide. English newspapers (OR – 4.23) were more likely to report events linked to celebrity suicide than local language newspapers Conclusion: Persons who died by suicide by hanging after a celebrity suicide are more likely to be young, female, unemployed, have a mental disorder or precipitating life events. Suicide prevention efforts must focus on this group and prevent the same method of suicide like that of the celebrity.

Suggested Citation

  • Vikas Menon & Sujita Kumar Kar & Marthoenis Marthoenis & SM Yasir Arafat & Ginni Sharma & Charanya Kaliamoorthy & Ramdas Ransing & Srijeeta Mukherjee & Jigyansa Ipsita Pattnaik & Nikhilesh B Shirahatt, 2021. "Is there any link between celebrity suicide and further suicidal behaviour in India?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(5), pages 453-460, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:67:y:2021:i:5:p:453-460
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764020964531
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764020964531
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764020964531?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. King-wa Fu & C H Chan, 2013. "A Study of the Impact of Thirteen Celebrity Suicides on Subsequent Suicide Rates in South Korea from 2005 to 2009," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(1), pages 1-7, January.
    2. Fahey, Robert A. & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Ueda, Michiko, 2018. "Tracking the Werther Effect on social media: Emotional responses to prominent suicide deaths on twitter and subsequent increases in suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 19-29.
    3. Jae-Hyun Kim & Eun-Cheol Park & Jung-Mo Nam & SoHee Park & Jaelim Cho & Sun-Jung Kim & Jae-Woo Choi & Eun Cho, 2013. "The Werther Effect of Two Celebrity Suicides: an Entertainer and a Politician," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-1, December.
    4. Ueda, Michiko & Mori, Kota & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2017. "Tweeting celebrity suicides: Users' reaction to prominent suicide deaths on Twitter and subsequent increases in actual suicides," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 158-166.
    5. Vikas Menon & Charanya Kaliamoorthy & Vivekanandhan Kavanoor Sridhar & Natarajan Varadharajan & Rini Joseph & Shivanand Kattimani & Sujita Kumar Kar & SM Yasir Arafat, 2020. "Do Tamil newspapers educate the public about suicide? Content analysis from a high suicide Union Territory in India," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 66(8), pages 785-791, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Ownby & P. Wesley Routon, 2020. "Tragedy Following Tragedies: Estimating the Copycat Effect of Media-Covered Suicide in the Age of Digital News," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 65(2), pages 312-329, October.
    2. Paul S. F. Yip & Edward Pinkney, 2022. "Social media and suicide in social movements: a case study in Hong Kong," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1023-1040, May.
    3. Fahey, Robert A. & Boo, Jeremy & Ueda, Michiko, 2020. "Covariance in diurnal patterns of suicide-related expressions on Twitter and recorded suicide deaths," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    4. Arendt, Florian & Haim, Mario & Scherr, Sebastian, 2020. "Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing: A cross-national study in four European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    5. Fahey, Robert A. & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Ueda, Michiko, 2018. "Tracking the Werther Effect on social media: Emotional responses to prominent suicide deaths on twitter and subsequent increases in suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 19-29.
    6. Jan Domaradzki, 2021. "The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-20, March.
    7. S M Yasir Arafat & Araz Ramazan Ahmad & Ayoob Kareem Saeed & Vikas Menon & Sheikh Shoib & Sujita Kumar Kar, 2022. "Quality of media reporting of suicide in Iraq," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(2), pages 443-448, March.
    8. Phillip Cheuk Fung Law & Lay San Too & Nicole T. M. Hill & Jo Robinson & Madelyn Gould & Jo-An Occhipinti & Matthew J. Spittal & Katrina Witt & Mark Sinyor & Benedikt Till & Nathaniel Osgood & Ante Pr, 2021. "A Pilot Case-Control Study of the Social Media Activity Following Cluster and Non-Cluster Suicides in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Mehdi Ben Khelil & Meriem Gharbaoui & Fethia Farhani & Malek Zaafrane & Hana Harzallah & Mohamed Allouche & Mongi Zhioua & Moncef Hamdoun, 2016. "Impact of the Tunisian Revolution on homicide and suicide rates in Tunisia," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 61(9), pages 995-1002, December.
    10. Maryam Ayub & Bariah Rafiq & Sania Mumtaz Tahir & Nazish Imran & Sadiq Naveed & Imran Ijaz Haider, 2023. "Assessing the quality of media reporting of suicide deaths in Pakistan against international guidelines," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 69(2), pages 406-411, March.
    11. Lutter, Mark & Roex, Karlijn L.A. & Tisch, Daria, 2020. "Anomie or imitation? The Werther effect of celebrity suicides on suicide rates in 34 OECD countries, 1960–2014," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    12. Tosin Philip Oyetunji & SM Yasir Arafat & Famori Stephen Oluwaseyi & Obafemi Oluwasanmi & Michael Afolami & Faith Moyo Ajayi, 2021. "News reporting of suicidal behaviour in Nigeria: Adherence assessment to World Health Organization guidelines," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(5), pages 448-452, August.
    13. Victoria Carmichael & Rob Whitley, 2019. "Media coverage of Robin Williams’ suicide in the United States: A contributor to contagion?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-13, May.
    14. Joseph Gibbons & Robert Malouf & Brian Spitzberg & Lourdes Martinez & Bruce Appleyard & Caroline Thompson & Atsushi Nara & Ming-Hsiang Tsou, 2019. "Twitter-based measures of neighborhood sentiment as predictors of residential population health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, July.
    15. Soonjoo Park & Yeong-Jun Song & Jinseob Kim & Myung Ki & Ji-Yeon Shin & Young-Man Kwon & Jiseun Lim, 2018. "Age, Period, and Cohort Effects on Suicide Mortality in South Korea, 1992–2015," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-8, July.
    16. Jae-Hyun Kim & Eun-Cheol Park & Jung-Mo Nam & SoHee Park & Jaelim Cho & Sun-Jung Kim & Jae-Woo Choi & Eun Cho, 2013. "The Werther Effect of Two Celebrity Suicides: an Entertainer and a Politician," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-1, December.
    17. Rebecca A. Bernert & Amanda M. Hilberg & Ruth Melia & Jane Paik Kim & Nigam H. Shah & Freddy Abnousi, 2020. "Artificial Intelligence and Suicide Prevention: A Systematic Review of Machine Learning Investigations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-25, August.
    18. Vikas Menon & Charanya Kaliamoorthy & Vivekanandhan Kavanoor Sridhar & Natarajan Varadharajan & Rini Joseph & Shivanand Kattimani & Sujita Kumar Kar & SM Yasir Arafat, 2020. "Do Tamil newspapers educate the public about suicide? Content analysis from a high suicide Union Territory in India," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 66(8), pages 785-791, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:67:y:2021:i:5:p:453-460. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.