Quality of online news reporting of suicidal behavior in Myanmar: Adherence to the World Health Organization reporting guidelines

BACKGROUND: Media reporting of suicide has an essential role in the suicidal behavior of the general population. AIMS: The aim of this study is to assess the quality of online news reports of suicidal behavior in Myanmar against the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting guidelines. METHODS: We performed a content analysis of all available suicide-related news reports published in vernacular online newspapers of Myanmar. RESULTS: A total of 285 reports were analyzed, consisting of 87.4% suicides and 12.6% nonfatal suicidal attempts. Potentially, harmful information reported in the text includes the methods of suicide (100%), the word or term in Burmese related to suicide (89.5%), the name of the person (56.5%), life event (50.5%), and photo or suicidal person (17.9%). Meanwhile, helpful information such as prevention programs and the contact information for suicide services to the readers have been infrequently reported. CONCLUSION: The study found that the newspaper reporting of suicide in Myanmar is grossly nonadherent to the WHO media guidelines.