Every September 10, 2020, World Suicide Prevention Day is observed to create awareness and to prevent others from committing suicide.
The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) to host World Suicide Prevention Day with various activities around the world since 2003.
Suicides have become headline news in most developing countries.
There has been an increased reportage of suicides by the Ghanaian news media.
This study aims to shed light on the trend of online news media reporting of suicides, and the epidemiology of media reported suicides in Ghana.
The victims of suicides were predominantly male (85.92%), young (mean age = 34.81 ± 15.71 years; range 10-86 years). Suicide by hanging (67.94%), the use of firearms (18.32%), and self-poisoning (8.93%) were the common methods used by the victims. There has been increased online news media reportage of suicides in Ghana in the last 3 years; 2017 witnessed the highest reportage of 30 (21%) cases.
Marital or relationships and family problems were commonly cited as the reasons for the commission of suicides; mental disorders, and financial problems were also cited as immediate triggers of the suicides by close relations of the victims.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
