Nonsuicidal self-injury in a clinical sample of adolescents in Serbia

Abstract

Background / Aim. Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents is recognized as a significant public health concern. Adolescents with mental health problems are at especially high risk of NSSI. This research aimed to investigate possible differences in gender, age, emotional reactivity, and expression of psychopathological characteristics between two groups of adolescents within a clinical population where the main distinguishing factor was the presence/absence of NSSI. Methods. The observational study included a clinical sample of 111 adolescents treated at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatric Clinic in the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina. The following clinical scales were used to examine the differences between adolescents with and without NSSI: self-report questionnaires about emotional and behavioural problems (YSR, CBCL), emotional reactivity (ERS), and suicidality (STIBI). Results. A total of 58 adolescents had at least one episode of NSSI in the last year. NSSI group were older, also more females in NSSI. The first episode of NSSI to be 13.05 and the last episode 14.80 years. The most common methods of NSSI were cutting scratching and biting Adolescents with NSSI had higher scores on ERS and higher scores on internalizing, externalizing, and total scores on YSR, but there is no difference between groups regarding scores on the CBCL scale. Conclusion. Due to the results obtained to emotional and behavioural problems, adolescents with NSSI should have a detailed psychiatric assessment including social support, pharmacotherapy, and psychotherapy, to better understand NSSI and to help them to develop better coping skills.

Nonsuicidal Self-Injury and Suicidal Beliefs in Adolescent Inpatient

“…Regarding the descriptive and contextual characteristics of NSSI, the findings of the present study are consistent with findings in related literature in many aspects, including the age of onset of self-injury [2], the most common methods of NSSI [8,[23][24][25], the most affected body parts [24], the predominantly distressing urge to self-injure [26], the "impulsive" quality of self-injury in terms of the time that elapses between the thought of self-injury and the performance of the act [24,27], the experience of physical pain during self-injury [24], more of those who self-injure following stressful situations, where failure is considered an overwhelming situation [24], more participants who disclose their self-injurious behavior to others [28], more of participants who engage in substitute acts to avoid self-injury [24]. Although the existing literature on social influence in NSSI talks about contagion or the "spread" of NSSI behavior and reports from one person to another, and that people who have disclosed NSSI (either to adults or peers) are more likely to have friends who selfinjure [28], the majority of participants reported that the initial idea to self-injure was their idea.…”

“…Although the existing literature on social influence in NSSI talks about contagion or the "spread" of NSSI behavior and reports from one person to another, and that people who have disclosed NSSI (either to adults or peers) are more likely to have friends who selfinjure [28], the majority of participants reported that the initial idea to self-injure was their idea. In terms of treatment for NSSI, a similar finding has been reported by other studies in our region, given the higher percentage of adolescents who reported that they had no treatment for NSSI [23,29].…”

“…In the current study, 66% of adolescents reported thoughts of taking their own life in the past year (hereafter referred to as suicidal ideation), and 10% had attempted suicide in the past, which is in line with a large body of evidence of the high rate of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among NSSI adolescent inpatient [8][9][10][11]. As with other research findings [10,22,23], there was a co-occurrence of NSSI and internalizing and externalizing symptoms in the study sample, with internalizing symptoms being prevalent.…”