Self-Injury in Adolescents: A Five-Year Study of Characteristics and Trends

Abstract

Background: Adolescent non-suicidal self-injurious behavior (NSSI) is a major public health concern. Although widespread, it is yet often a hidden problem. The purpose of this study was to explore the characteristics of self-injurious behavior in youth treated in an in-patient psychiatric unit. Subjects and methods: The study included 105 adolescents with a history of NSSI (mean age 15 years, 80% females) that underwent inpatient psychiatric treatment at a specialized facility. The factors assessed were sociodemographic data, frequency and type of NSSI, history of psychiatric disorder in family, existence of past traumatic event, alcohol, cigarettes and drug dependance and clinical psychiatric diagnosis. Retrospective-chart review study. Results: Of all assessed, patients with NSSI were predominantly female adolescents. Mean age onset of NSSI in the sample was 15 years. Equal number of patients showed occasional and repetitive NSSI, using self-cutting as a most common mean of self-injury. Approximately ¼ of adolescents met criteria for an adjustment disorder and ¼ for a mixed disorder of conduct and emotions. A low 7.8% met the criterion for borderline personality disorder. We found a statistically significant correlation between alcohol consumption and frequency of self-injurious behavior. Conclusions: Our study points to the fact that there has been an increase in prevalence of NSSI. Also, NSSI showed to be associated with female gender, alcohol consumption and a broad spectrum of comorbidities. Future research should focus not only on adolescents being hospitalized and treated, but should be representative of the whole young population because there are no national statistics on NSSI among young people in Croatia. Furthermore, future studies should focus on the origin of NSSI as opposed to its characteristics, in order for professionals to be able to prevent the issue.

Global prevalence and characteristics of non-suicidal self-injury between 2010 and 2021 among a non-clinical sample of adolescents: A meta-analysis

“…According to our results, the prevalence of NSSI in female adolescents was higher than that in male adolescents. This was consistent with the research results in a study that NSSI showed to be associated with female gender ( 84 ). Female adolescents may be more susceptible to self-injury because they are more likely to experience higher negative influence and have lower ability to manage emotion, including acceptance of emotions and controlling impulses ( 78 ).…”

Cultural Representations of Borderline Personality Disorder

“…Fourteen (64%) studies mentioned methods of self-harm that were seen in a particular culture (Söderberg, 2001;Jacobson et al, 2008;Holm and Severinsson, 2010;Wong et al, 2010;Cerutti et al, 2011;Gratz et al, 2012;You et al, 2012;Hu et al, 2016;Hayashi et al, 2017;Takeuchi et al, 2018;Bježančević et al, 2019;Chartrand et al, 2020;Levine et al, 2020). The total sample size for these studies is 26,095, with 63% (n = 16,313) women and 37% (n = 9,782) men.…”

“…Using a reference and citation search from the 12 articles (Jacobson et al, 2008;Nath et al, 2008;Holm and Severinsson, 2010;Wong et al, 2010;Cerutti et al, 2011Cerutti et al, , 2012Gratz et al, 2012;Del Bello et al, 2015;Hu et al, 2016;Hayashi et al, 2017;Takeuchi et al, 2018;Bježančević et al, 2019) identified through the PubMed search, an additional 4 articles (Paris, 1996;Pinto et al, 2000;Söderberg, 2001;Wang et al, 2012) were identified. Five other articles (Bježančević et al, 2019;Ronningstam et al, 2018;Haliczer et al, 2019;Chartrand et al, 2020;Levine et al, 2020) included in the literature review are from non-exhaustive initial searches that were conducted while refining the keywords for the main search. One additional article was discovered by a reviewer and included in the review (You et al, 2012).…”

“The pen is the blade, my skin the paper”: risk factors for self-injury in adolescents

“…Of these, 26.7% have already thought about doing something and 19.1% report having done it. Thus, individuals who exhibit self-injury behavior need frequent care and evaluation, since they must be considered as a group with a high risk of suicide (40) .…”