In this blog, Claudia García-Martínez, psychologist and PhD student in Psychology at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) discusses the role of social media in developing new approaches for suicide prevention.
Suicide has been defined as a global health priority by World Health Organization (2014). And it is not for less: it causes over 700,000 deaths every year in the world and is the fourth leading cause of death in young people aged 15-29 years. The reduction of suicide mortality is a global target and is included as an indicator in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)1.
In some way, stigma and taboo have possibly hampered a greater development of prevention strategies for decades. Now we are talking more and more about suicide and therefore, we are seeing new prevention approaches that hopefully will lead to a better prevention and intervention programs.
Until a few decades ago, research efforts have been focused on curbing suicide deaths by trying to predict their occurrence. But suicide deaths are statistically a rare event. So it has been really complex to develop sensitive tools with sufficient predictive value. Continue reading
- World Health Organisation. Fact sheets: Suicide. June 17, 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide [↩]