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One in 12 teenagers self harm, study finds
Source: Agencies |
November 17, 2011, Thursday
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ONE in 12 young people, mostly girls, engage in self-harming such as cutting, burning or taking life-threatening risks and around 10 percent of these continue to deliberately harm themselves into young adulthood, a study found today.
Since self-harming is one of the strongest predictors of who will go on to commit suicide, the psychiatrists who conducted the study said they hoped its findings would help galvanize support for more active and earlier intervention for people at risk.
"The numbers we're talking about here are huge," said Keith Hawton of the Centre for Suicide Research at Britain's Oxford University, who reviewed the findings at a briefing in London.
George Patton, who led the study at the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, said the findings revealed a "window of vulnerability" when young people were in their mid-teens and often struggling with emotional control.
"Self-harming represents a way of dealing with those emotions," he told the briefing.
In a report of their work in the Lancet medical journal, Patton's team also said young people who self-harm often have mental health problems that might not resolve without treatment.
"Because of the association between self-harm and suicide...the treatment of common mental disorders during adolescence could constitute an important...component of suicide prevention in young adults," they said.
Since self-harming is one of the strongest predictors of who will go on to commit suicide, the psychiatrists who conducted the study said they hoped its findings would help galvanize support for more active and earlier intervention for people at risk.
"The numbers we're talking about here are huge," said Keith Hawton of the Centre for Suicide Research at Britain's Oxford University, who reviewed the findings at a briefing in London.
George Patton, who led the study at the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, said the findings revealed a "window of vulnerability" when young people were in their mid-teens and often struggling with emotional control.
"Self-harming represents a way of dealing with those emotions," he told the briefing.
In a report of their work in the Lancet medical journal, Patton's team also said young people who self-harm often have mental health problems that might not resolve without treatment.
"Because of the association between self-harm and suicide...the treatment of common mental disorders during adolescence could constitute an important...component of suicide prevention in young adults," they said.
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