Assessing the Adherence to Guidelines of Media Reporting of Suicide Using a Novel Instrument—the “Risk of Imitative Suicide Scale” (RISc)

Media guidelines for reporting of suicide are considered important in suicide prevention because of the risk of “imitative” suicide. There are currently no established tools for the quantification of quality of reporting. We sought to develop and validate a quality assessment instrument—the Risk of Imitative Suicide Scale (RISc). The RISc appears capable of discriminating reliably between adherent and nonadherent articles. Our data suggest that adherence to guidelines is inconsistent, and there are major differences between web‐based and print media. The RISc could be used to evaluate effectiveness and consistency of media engagement with suicide prevention strategies.     

Chronic stress burden, discrimination, and subclinical carotid artery disease in African American and Caucasian women.

This study examined the association between a composite index of stress that included measures of life events, ongoing stress, discrimination, and economic hardship and subclinical carotid disease among 109 African America and 225 Caucasian premenopausal women. African Americans reported more chronic stress and had higher carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) as compared with Caucasians. Among African Americans only, the composite stress index and unfair treatment were associated with higher IMT. These effects were partially mediated by biological risk factors. African American who reported experiencing racial discrimination had marginally more carotid plaque than did those who did not report experiencing racial discrimination. The results suggest that African Americans may be particularly vulnerable to the burden of chronic stress.