JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

As populations age, the demand for long-term care services steadily increases. The effectiveness of government-promoted long-term care policies and the public's access to relevant service information is demonstrably influenced by media representation. Additionally, prior research suggested that news framing can mitigate the negative influence (Werther effect) with a more hopeful framing (Papageno effect), thereby reducing the public's susceptibility to negative news.

Objective:

This study aimed to investigate the phenomenon of “long-term care tragedies” reported in the news, where family caregivers or care receivers committed suicide or homicide. We examined changes in the media’s reporting framework before and after the implementation of Taiwan’s Long-Term Care Plan 2.0 in 2017. We further analyzed the correlation between the content of news reports and the information provided by the media on long-term care services and suicide prevention.

Methods:

Content analysis and text mining techniques were used to analyze 433 news reports covering 95 cases in Taiwan from 2009 to 2021. A random effects model was applied to examine term frequency transition post-implementation.

Results:

The majority (over 60%) of the cases involved family caregivers homicide-suicide. Terminology has significantly shifted from “family moral tragedy” to “long-term care tragedy” in news headlines and content since 2017. The term frequency of “care burden” has significantly increased. While linguistic characteristics of the content remained consistent, there were statistically significant differences in medicine and ethics-related terms. The media tends to provide more suicide prevention information (e.g., hotlines), offering relatively limited coverage of long-term care services.

Conclusions:

This study underscores the media's crucial role in effectively communicating long-term care policies and services. Our findings suggest that government efforts to encourage media coverage of positive experiences with long-term care services can be a preventative measure against caregiving tragedies. Moreover, suppose government efforts to strengthen media publicity and improve media literacy in long-term care. By empowering the media to provide readers with clear channels for seeking help, such as hotlines, the media will contribute positively to the mental health of family caregivers. Finally, an annual database on family caregiver homicide-suicide is established. In that case, the government can identify potential risk factors and inform the formulation and revision of relevant policies and services through this database, ultimately contributing to preventing caregiving tragedies and achieving public health goals.