Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Crisis. 2012;33(4):239-45. doi: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000140.
Since the development of Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) guidelines for the management of suicide clusters, the use of electronic communication technologies has increased dramatically.
To describe an adolescent suicide cluster that drew our attention to the possible role of online social networking and SMS text messaging as sources of contagion after a suicide and obstacles to recognition of a potential cluster.
A public health approach involving a multidisciplinary community response was used to investigate a group of suicides of New Zealand adolescents thought to be a cluster. Difficulties in identifying and managing contagion posed by use of electronic communications were assessed.
The probability of observing a time-space cluster such as this by chance alone was p = .009. The cases did not belong to a single school, rather several were linked by social networking sites, including sites created in memory of earlier suicide cases, as well as mobile telephones. These facilitated the rapid spread of information and rumor about the deaths throughout the community. They made the recognition and management of a possible cluster more difficult.
Relevant community agencies should proactively develop a strategy to enable the identification and management of suicide contagion. Guidelines to assist communities in managing clusters should be updated to reflect the widespread use of communication technologies in modern society.
自疾病控制中心（CDC）制定自杀群集管理指南以来，电子通信技术的使用已大幅增加。
描述一起青少年自杀群集事件，该事件引起了我们对在线社交网络和 SMS 短信可能成为自杀后的传染源以及识别潜在群集的障碍的关注。
采用公共卫生方法，多学科社区响应来调查一组新西兰青少年自杀事件，这些事件被认为是群集。评估了使用电子通信所带来的识别和管理传染的困难。
仅因偶然而观察到这种时空群集的可能性为 p =.009。这些病例不属于单一学校，而是通过社交网站（包括为纪念早期自杀病例而创建的网站）以及移动电话联系在一起的。这些便利了有关死亡的信息和谣言在整个社区中的快速传播。这使得识别和管理可能的群集变得更加困难。
相关社区机构应积极制定一项策略，以识别和管理自杀传染。应更新指导方针，以协助社区管理群集，以反映现代社会中广泛使用通信技术。
