TY - JOUR
T1 - Temporal and diurnal variation in social media posts to a suicide support forum
AU - Dutta, Rina
AU - Gkotsis, George
AU - Velupillai, Sumithra
AU - Bakolis, Ioannis
AU - Stewart, Robert
N1 - Funding Information:
RS has received research funding from Roche, Janssen and GlaxoSmithKline. RD and SV declare previous research funding received from Janssen. The other authors have no competing interests.
Funding Information:
RD is funded by a Clinician Scientist Fellowship (research project e-HOST-IT) from the Health Foundation in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences which also funded GG. SV was supported by the Swedish Research Council (2015–00359), Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions, Cofund, Project INCA 600398. IB and RS are funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. IB’s research is also part funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) via the ‘Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South London’ (CLAHRC South London) at King’s College Hospital National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, London, UK.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/5/19
Y1 - 2021/5/19
N2 - BACKGROUND: Rates of suicide attempts and deaths are highest on Mondays and these occur more frequently in the morning or early afternoon, suggesting weekly temporal and diurnal variation in suicidal behaviour. It is unknown whether there are similar time trends on social media, of posts relevant to suicide. We aimed to determine temporal and diurnal variation in posting patterns on the Reddit forum SuicideWatch, an online community for individuals who might be at risk of, or who know someone at risk of suicide.METHODS: We used time series analysis to compare date and time stamps of 90,518 SuicideWatch posts from 1st December 2008 to 31st August 2015 to (i) 6,616,431 posts on the most commonly subscribed general subreddit, AskReddit and (ii) 66,934 of these AskReddit posts, which were posted by the SuicideWatch authors.RESULTS: Mondays showed the highest proportion of posts on SuicideWatch. Clear diurnal variation was observed, with a peak in the early morning (2:00-5:00 h), and a subsequent decrease to a trough in late morning/early afternoon (11:00-14:00 h). Conversely, the highest volume of posts in the control data was between 20:00-23:00 h.CONCLUSIONS: Posts on SuicideWatch occurred most frequently on Mondays: the day most associated with suicide risk. The early morning peak in SuicideWatch posts precedes the time of day during which suicide attempts and deaths most commonly occur. Further research of these weekly and diurnal rhythms should help target populations with support and suicide prevention interventions when needed most.
AB - BACKGROUND: Rates of suicide attempts and deaths are highest on Mondays and these occur more frequently in the morning or early afternoon, suggesting weekly temporal and diurnal variation in suicidal behaviour. It is unknown whether there are similar time trends on social media, of posts relevant to suicide. We aimed to determine temporal and diurnal variation in posting patterns on the Reddit forum SuicideWatch, an online community for individuals who might be at risk of, or who know someone at risk of suicide.METHODS: We used time series analysis to compare date and time stamps of 90,518 SuicideWatch posts from 1st December 2008 to 31st August 2015 to (i) 6,616,431 posts on the most commonly subscribed general subreddit, AskReddit and (ii) 66,934 of these AskReddit posts, which were posted by the SuicideWatch authors.RESULTS: Mondays showed the highest proportion of posts on SuicideWatch. Clear diurnal variation was observed, with a peak in the early morning (2:00-5:00 h), and a subsequent decrease to a trough in late morning/early afternoon (11:00-14:00 h). Conversely, the highest volume of posts in the control data was between 20:00-23:00 h.CONCLUSIONS: Posts on SuicideWatch occurred most frequently on Mondays: the day most associated with suicide risk. The early morning peak in SuicideWatch posts precedes the time of day during which suicide attempts and deaths most commonly occur. Further research of these weekly and diurnal rhythms should help target populations with support and suicide prevention interventions when needed most.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106291746&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12888-021-03268-1
DO - 10.1186/s12888-021-03268-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 34011346
SN - 1471-244X
VL - 21
SP - 259
EP - 266
JO - BMC Psychiatry
JF - BMC Psychiatry
IS - 1
M1 - 259
ER -