Reasons to love life. Effects of a suicide-awareness campaign on the utilization of a telephone emergency line in Austria.
BACKGROUND
A suicide awareness campaign was initiated in the Austrian federal state of Styria to increase help-seeking behavior in the population. Billboards were shown throughout Styria depicting joyful everyday-life situations with a focus on social and family connectedness, and promoting the Telephone Emergency Service, a crisis hotline.


OBJECTIVE
The present study investigated the impact of this campaign on the utilization of the crisis hotline and on suicide rates.


METHODS
Phone calls and suicide rates in the study region 3 months before the campaign were compared with rates 3 months after the campaign. The changes were contrasted with the characteristics of phone calls and the suicide rate in a comparable control region.


RESULTS
There were significantly more phone calls in the study region after the awareness campaign compared to the control region, which was similar to seasonal trends in nonintervention years, and there was no increase of suicide-related phone calls. The proportion of suicide-related phone calls referring to family problems decreased after the initiation of the campaign. Suicide rates did not change.


CONCLUSIONS
The campaign may have had some minor immediate impact on the utilization of the Telephone Emergency Service, but it did not seem to motivate suicidal individuals, especially those with family problems, to call.
<location>Suicide Research Unit, Department of General Practice and Family Medicine, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Austria</location>
Benedikt
B
Till
Gernot
G
Sonneck
Gerhard
G
Baldauf
Elise
E
Steiner
Thomas
T
Niederkrotenthaler
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000329:Advertising / Q000379:methods*; D001317:Austria; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D015277:Hotlines / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D055815:Young Adult; D000092864:Suicide Prevention
Austria; awareness campaign; crisis hotline; suicide; telephonic utilization