Strategies and Contents of Public Awareness Campaigns for Suicide Prevention: A Cross-National Comparative Study

Background: Suicide is a grobal program. Suicde rate has been increased by 60% over the last 45 years in the world. Public awareness campaign is the core factor of the national suicide prevention strategies. To more systematically develop current national suicide prevention campaigns, we need to expand our cross-national understanding of national strategies and practices of public awareness campaigns.

Method: This study analyzed the national-level public awareness campaigns for suicide prevention of New Zealand, USA, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, and South Korea whose campaigns were known to be successful, and compared them with the other countries. For this purpose, the analysis framework constructed based on the ‘Guideline for Effective Health Communication Campaigns’ by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was used to perform the cross-national comparative study on suicide prevention campaigns from the dimensions of (1) clarity of goals, (2) appropracy of targeting strategies, (3) suitability of messaging strategies, and (4) efficiency of performance.

Results: The results show that, effective public awareness campaigns for suicide prevention have the following common factors: (1) campaign appellations which include clear goals, (2) targeting at risk groups considering social contexts, (3) slogans which contains specific action guidelines, and (4) close relationships between public and private sectors.

Conclusion: On this basis, future directions for more effective suicide prevention media campaigns need to consider the followings: clear goals, campaign targets, specific slogans, and collaboration between public and private sectors.