JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Young people commonly use social media platforms to communicate about suicide. Although research indicates this communication may be helpful, the potential for harm still exists. In order to facilitate safe communication about suicide on social media, we developed the #chatsafe guidelines, which we sought to implement via a national social media campaign in Australia. Population-wide suicide prevention campaigns have been shown to improve knowledge, awareness, and attitudes toward suicide. However, suicide prevention campaigns will be ineffective if they do not reach their target audience. Including young people in the co-design of suicide prevention campaigns can increase the engagement and usefulness of these interventions.

Objective:

: This article describes the process and outcome of co-designing a suicide prevention social media campaign with young people based on the #chatsafe guidelines. The aims were to document key elements of the co-design process; to evaluate young people’s experiences of the co-design process; and to capture the recommendations that young people made for the #chatsafe suicide prevention social media campaign.

Methods:

Eleven co-design workshops were conducted, with a total of 134 young people aged between 17 and 25 years. Workshops employed commonly used co-design strategies, however, modifications were made in order to create a safe and comfortable environment given the population and complexity and sensitivity of the subject matter. Young people’s experiences of the workshops were evaluated through a short survey at the end of each workshop. Recommendations for the campaign strategy were captured through a thematic analysis of post-workshop discussions with facilitators.

Results:

Young people reported the workshops were both safe and enjoyable. They reported feeling better equipped to communicate safely about suicide online and feeling better able to identify and support others who may be at risk of suicide. Key recommendations for the campaign strategy were that young people wanted to see bite-sized sections of the guidelines come to life via sharable content such as short videos, animations, photographs, and images. They wanted to feel visible in campaign materials and wanted all materials to be fully inclusive. The final #chatsafe campaign comprised seven campaign directions and three content types which were deployed three times a week over a 12-week period.

Conclusions:

This is the first study internationally to co-design a suicide prevention social media campaign in partnership with young people. The study demonstrates that it is feasible to safely engage young people in co-designing a suicide prevention intervention and that this process produces recommendations which can usefully inform suicide prevention campaigns aimed at youth. The fact that young people felt better able to safely communicate about suicide online as a result of participation in the study augurs well for youth engagement with the national campaign, which was rolled out across Australia. If effective, the campaign has the potential to better prepare hundreds of thousands of young people to communicate safely about suicide online. Clinical Trial: N/A