Table 2.

Suicide Prevention Resource Center’s safe and effective messaging for suicide prevention.

Guideline	Description
Emphasize seeking help and provide information on where to find it	Provide steps for finding mental health treatment. Advise that help is available through local service providers and crisis centers and through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255).
Emphasize prevention	Highlight that suicide is avoidable and preventable and that there are actions for individuals who have suicidal thoughts to prevent them from acting on those thoughts [73].
List the warning signs as well as the risk and protective factors of suicide	List the warning signs like the ones developed by the American Association of Suicidology. List what could both reduce and increase the risk of suicide; these can be found on pages 35-36 in the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. Educate people on how to identify a person with self-harming thoughts.
Highlight effective treatments for underlying mental health problems	A total of 46% of people who died by suicide from 2014 to 2016 had a known mental health condition, with 67% of them having a history of treatment for substance abuse. Among them, 46.7% had recently been released from a psychiatric facility [74], a percentage which can be reduced by providing improved access to effective treatments and social support [75].
Avoid glorifying or romanticizing suicide or people who died by suicide	Vulnerable younger adults may relate to the attention given to and sympathy for a person who committed suicide [76].
Avoid normalizing suicide by presenting it as a common event	Suicide ideation is not seen as normal by most people, and they do not consider it an option. However, presenting suicide as a common event may remove this bias [77].
Avoid presenting suicide as an inexplicable act or explain it as a result of stress only	Doing so may encourage identification with the victim as well as ignoring the complexity and preventability of suicide. Presenting suicide as explainable or a result of stress only misleads vulnerable individuals to believe that it is a normal response to common life situations [72,77-80].
Avoid focusing on personal details of people who died by suicide	Vulnerable younger adults may feel they are like the person who committed suicide, eventually leading them to consider taking their lives in the same way [79].
Avoid presenting overly detailed descriptions of suicide victims or methods of suicide	Including pictures and/or descriptions of where and how an individual died by suicide may lead a vulnerable person to imitate the act [79,80].