Beneficial and Harmful Effects of Reducing Public Suicide Stigma

There is growing evidence that negative attitudes towards persons affected by suicide (i.e. persons who experience suicidality, persons who lost a loved one to suicide), so called public suicide stigma, is harmful for suicide prevention, for example by reducing social support, inhibiting help-seeking for suicidality and increasing distress as well as suicidality among stigmatized persons. Reducing public suicide stigma could therefore be an important factor of successful suicide prevention. However, reducing public suicide stigma could also be harmful, for example by increasing attitudes that suicidal behaviour is a normal and acceptable solution for crisis situations, which could decrease help-seeking for suicidality and encourage suicidal behaviour. This project will (1) develop four interventions (contact-based vs. education based, video vs. text) hypothesized to reduce public suicide stigma, (2) determine the efficacy of the four interventions with regard to reducing public suicide stigma, (3) identify additional harmful (e.g. normalization of suicidal behaviour) and beneficial intervention effects (e.g. improved attitudes to seek help) and (4) investigate pathways explaining intervention effects.

Participants randomized to this group will watch a video of a person talking about his recovery after attempting suicide.

Participants randomized to this group will read a personal story of a person who survived a suicide attempt.

Participants randomized to this group will watch a video of a psychiatrist presenting facts about suicide and suicide prevention.

Participants randomized to this group will read a text containing facts about suicide and suicide prevention.

Participants randomized to this group will read a personal story of a person who survived a heart attack.

Participants randomized to this group will read a text containing facts about heart-attacks and their prevention.

Batterham al. (2013) The Stigma of Suicide Scale. Psychometric properties and correlates of the stigma of suicide. Crisis 34(1):13-21

Batterham al. (2013) The Stigma of Suicide Scale. Psychometric properties and correlates of the stigma of suicide. Crisis 34(1):13-21

Batterham et al. (2013) Correlates of suicide stigma and suicide literacy in the community. Suicide Life Threat Behav 43(4):406-417

Cwik et al. (2017) Measuring attitudes towards suicide: Preliminary evaluation of an attitude towards suicide scale. Compr Psychiatry 72:56-65

Wilson et al. (2005) Measuring help-seeking intentions: Properties of the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire. Canadian Journal of Counselling 39(1):15-28

One item adapted from the PHQ-9 (Kroenke et al. 2001; "Do you currently experience thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself?" response scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much)

Breyer & Bluemke (2016) Deutsche Version der Positive and Negative Affect Schedule PANAS (GESIS Panel). ZIS - GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

Löwe et al. (2005) Detecting and monitoring depression with a two-item questionnaire (PHQ-2). Journal of Psychosomatic Research 58(2):163-171

Inclusion Criteria: Participants need to be at least 18 years old, speak German and provide online informed consent. Exclusion Criteria: Persons who self-report to have experienced suicidality within three months before baseline will be excluded.