The WHO recommendations for the prevention of suicide reflected in the Spanish press

Abstract

This article analyzes the informative treatment that the newspapers El País, ABC, El Mundo and La Razón gave to the subject of suicide in Spain during the year 2017. The objective is to know if they take into account the recommendations of the WHO for the prevention of suicidal behaviors. After applying a methodology of content analysis, the results show that suicide is presented as a current issue, with a predominance of informative texts and poor specialization. Only 4.5% of the contents is related to prevention of suicidal behaviors, while the vast majority does not present preventive measures and focus on aspects such as the triggering factors, the mechanism used and the suicide note, contents that are far from WHO recommendations to talk about the issue.