The association between Internet searches and actual suicide in Spain

Abstract

High suicide rates are a major issue in Spain, to the extent that they are the main non-natural cause of death in this country. The present study analyses the relationship between Internet searches and actual suicide rates in Spain. For this purpose, we employ data from actual suicide rates and Google® searches for Spain, differencing by the means used to commit suicide. Our results show that suicide (“suicidio”) search term seems to be positively associated with higher total suicide rates, in addition to suicides using poison, suffocation and jumping. The suicide (“suicidio”) topic presents similar results to the suicide search term, and suicide by car crash also seems to be associated with Internet searches of this topic.