Newspaper stories in the U.S. reporting on suicide may be linked to teen suicide clusters.

Researchers set out to identify the potential role that articles about suicides play in these suicide clusters.

The study analyzed 48 suicide clusters in the U.S. from 1988 to 1996 among individuals between the ages of 13 and 20 years of age. Every cluster included between three to 11 people who committed suicide within six months of the initial suicide.

The researchers then compared these cluster communities to controlled communities located in the same state, but not from neighboring counties. The study’s researchers then analyzed 469 newspapers that contained stories about suicide. These newspapers were published in the time frame between the first and second suicides within both the control and cluster communities.

Senior study author Dr. Madelyn Gould from the New York State Psychiatric Institute and colleagues discovered that considerably more stories were published in newspapers following suicide clusters within a six-month period than those with no additional suicide clusters within six months.

The strongest association was found for news stories about suicides among teens.

These cluster suicide stories are most likely to either be found on the front page, have eye-catching headlines containing the term “suicide,” have accompanying photographs, or describe the method used in great detail.

“Although we cannot show causality, our study indicates that media portrayals of suicide might have a role in the emergence of some teenage suicide clusters. The findings constitute the first available information on the circumstances differentiating a suicide that leads to a suicide cluster from one that does not,” said Dr. Gould in a statement. “Our study indicates that media portrayals of suicide might have a role in the emergence of some teenage suicide clusters.”

The findings of the study are published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal.