Background: Mass media has an important role in influencing the suicidal behavior of the general population. However, the quality of news reporting of suicide has not been assessed in Iraq.
Aim: We aimed to assess the quality of news reports in Iraq while reporting the suicidal behaviors.
Methods: The search was done on Google in November and December 2020 with the search term 'suicide news in Iraq' and accessible news reports distributed in Kurdish, Arabic, and English languages were taken out. We scrutinized the news reports to identify the reporting characteristics and compared them with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
Results: A total of 130 news reports were analyzed; among them 23.8% were Kurdish, 63.8% were Arabic, and 12.3% were in the English language. About 31.5% of the reports mentioned the name and 40.8% mentioned the occupation. The name of method was mentioned in 88.5%, mono-causality was found in about 34.6%, the term 'suicide' was mentioned in the headline in 94.6%, and method of suicide was mentioned in the headline of about 27.7% of the reports. Only 5.4% of the reports traced mental illness, 6.9% mentioned expert opinion, and none of the reports mentioned prevention program, and educative information.
Conclusion: The study revealed that news reports of suicidal behavior in Iraq are poorly adherent to the WHO reporting guidelines. Further studies are warranted to identify the responsible factors and culture-specific prevention strategies.
Keywords: Iraq; Suicide; content analysis; media reporting; suicide and media.