Self-harm in Adolescents

What is it about?

This paper identifies the prevalence of self-harm in a community sample of 856 school-going adolescents in Ireland. It also identifies the factors that are associated with self-harm behavior which include the exposure to self-harm of a friend/family member. The paper also reports on the low level of professional help-seeking both prior to and after self-harm.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

There have been relatively few community studies of adolescent self-harm in Ireland. This paper adds to the evidence base on this topic using internationally validated methods to establish the prevalence of self-harm thereby allowing comparability to other studies using the same methods. Identifying the prevalence of self-harm and associated factors, in addition to help-seeking behaviors in young people is important to determine the preventative programs to target 'at-risk' groups.