Phillips D P, Carstensen L L
N Engl J Med. 1986 Sep 11;315(11):685-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJM198609113151106.
We examined the relation between 38 nationally televised news or feature stories about suicide from 1973 to 1979 and the fluctuation of the rate of suicide among American teenagers before and after these stories. The observed number of suicides by teenagers from zero to seven days after these broadcasts (1666) was significantly greater than the number expected (1555; P = 0.008). The more networks that carried a story about suicide, the greater was the increase in suicides thereafter (P = 0.0004). These findings persisted after correction for the effects of the day of the week, the month, holidays, and yearly trends. Teenage suicides increased more than adult suicides after stories about suicide (6.87 vs. 0.45 percent). Suicides increased as much after general-information or feature stories about suicide as after news stories about a particular suicide. Six alternative explanations of these findings were assessed, including the possibility that the results were due to misclassification or were statistical artifacts. We conclude that the best available explanation is that television stories about suicide trigger additional suicides, perhaps because of imitation.
我们研究了1973年至1979年期间全国电视播出的38个关于自杀的新闻或专题报道与这些报道前后美国青少年自杀率波动之间的关系。在这些报道播出后的零至七天内，青少年自杀的观察数量（1666例）显著高于预期数量（1555例；P = 0.008）。报道自杀事件的电视台越多，其后自杀率的上升幅度就越大（P = 0.0004）。在对一周中的日期、月份、节假日和年度趋势的影响进行校正后，这些发现依然存在。关于自杀的报道播出后，青少年自杀率的上升幅度超过了成年人（6.87%对0.45%）。关于自杀的一般信息或专题报道播出后，自杀率的上升幅度与关于特定自杀事件的新闻报道播出后的上升幅度一样大。我们评估了对这些发现的六种其他解释，包括结果可能是由于错误分类或统计假象的可能性。我们得出结论，现有的最佳解释是，关于自杀的电视报道引发了更多自杀事件，可能是由于模仿。
