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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV1302

Reducing suicidal ideation through protective media content in India: a randomized controlled trial

REDUCING SUICIDAL IDEATION THROUGH PROTECTIVE MEDIA CONTENT IN INDIA: A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Brief, culturally adapted educational news content in Tamil produced a small but significant reduction in suicidal ideation, reduced stigma, and improved suicide prevention knowledge among young adults from the general population.

The study aimed to test whether brief, culturally adapted digital news content in Tamil could reduce suicidal ideation and suicide stigma and improve suicide prevention knowledge, highlighting the lack of experimental evidence from low- and middle-income countries in this area. The three-arm randomized controlled trial, conducted in Chennai, India, enrolled 375 young adults from the general population and randomized them in a 1:1:1 ratio to a control group (n = 125, three news articles about diabetes), an educational content group (n = 124, three educational news articles with expert commentary), and an educational content plus coping narrative group (n = 126, the same three educational news articles plus coping vignettes). Assessments were conducted at baseline, immediately after exposure, and on day 14; the primary outcome was assessed using the Survival and Coping Beliefs subscale of the Reasons for Living Inventory, and secondary outcomes were assessed using the Suicide Stigma Assessment Scale and the Literacy of Suicide Scale. Compared with the control group, educational content reduced suicidal ideation both immediately after exposure and on day 14 (standardized mean difference, SMD 0.15 and 0.17; p < 0.05); in the educational content plus narrative arm, the effect was 0.05 immediately after exposure and 0.16 on day 14 (p = 0.053). In the subgroup with greater vulnerability at baseline, both interventions reduced suicidal ideation on day 14 (effect size = 0.32 for both; p < 0.05). For secondary outcomes, both intervention formats reduced stigma (SMD 0.19 and 0.26) and improved suicide prevention knowledge (SMD 0.50 and 0.44; all p < 0.05). In conclusion, brief, culturally adapted media content can change suicide-related outcomes among general population audiences; small effects at the individual level may have substantial value at the population level when protective content is repeatedly embedded in widely consumed news and digital media.

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