Effectiveness of a suicide prevention TV campaign on the recognition and utilization of the National Suicide Hotline in Korea

Background

Mass media campaign is known to be an effective method, but little is investigated about the effectiveness on suicide prevention in Korea whose suicide rate is the highest one among OECD countries. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a TV campaign conducted by Korea Suicide Prevention Center.

Methods

For Study 1, we analyzed the data of 703 participants who completed both pre and post surveys out of a total of 1,100 adults randomly selected nationwide using a stratified proportional quota sampling method considering sex, age, and region. For Study 2, we analyzed the number of phone calls to the hotline of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Descriptive analysis and Chi-Square analysis were used.

Results

For Study 1, 25.9% of the sample watched the TV campaign. While no one knew the hotline number(129) in the pre-survey, 5.5% reported the exact number among the TV ad viewers (N=182) in post-survey. The relationship between the watching the TV campaign and recognition of the hotline was statistically significant (X²=7.279, p=0.014). For Study 2, there were significantly increased phone calls during the campaign than the average of 4 weeks before the campaign. The average number of phone calls per day increased during the 15-day campaign was 69.7 compared to 39.5 before the campaign.

Conclusion

The results supported the effectiveness of suicide prevention mass media campaign in terms of recognition and use of the crisis hotline by showing the increased number of people who recognized the hotline number and the increased hotline phone calls during the campaign.