Accessing Suicide-Related Information on the Internet: A Retrospective Observational Study of Search Behavior
Journal of Medical Internet ResearchPublished 11 January 2013Open access
Paul Wong, King‐Wa Fu, Rickey Sai-Pong Yau, Helen Hei-Man, Yik Wa Law, Shu‐Sen Chang
Citations53
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.99
SNIP1.96
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TL;DR
What webpages people actually clicked on after searching with suicide-related queries on a search engine was investigated and what queries people used to get access to pro-suicide websites were examined.
Abstract
Searching or browsing suicide-related or pro-suicide webpages was uncommon, although a small group of users did access websites that contain detailed suicide method information.
Keywords
Social SciencesMedicine
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