Youth and Self-Harm
A summary of research commissioned by Samaritans and carried out
by the Centre for Suicide Research, University of Oxford in 41
schools in Birmingham, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire during
2000-2001.
More than 24,000 teenagers are
admitted to hospital in the UK each year after deliberately harming
themselves. Most have taken drug overdoses or cut themselves. The
majority are not, as is sometimes believed, trying to take their
lives but to relieve an intense emotional pain which is causing
them to suffer; that they feel they have no alternative way to deal
with. Self-harm is ‘a way of screaming without words’.
Self-harm is a clear sign of distress.
Unfortunately it is one which is often repeated, with some
10 to 15 per cent of self-harmers harming themselves again
within a year. What is more, adolescents who self-harm are far more
likely than other adolescents to go on to die by suicide.
However until now little has been
known about the vast majority of adolescents who self-harm in the
UK. This lack of knowledge has made it difficult to offer help and
support to those adolescents most at risk. To address this,
Samaritans, the emotional support charity, collaborated with
researchers from Oxford University's Centre for Suicide Research to
carry out the UK's first large-scale, anonymous study of self-harm
among school children.
The results offer a fresh insight into
the minds of teenagers who self-harm, and importantly the action
they say is needed to help those most at risk.
- 10 per cent of teenagers aged 15 and 16 years old have
deliberately self-harmed - seven per cent in the previous
year.
- The majority, more than 64 per cent, of those who self-harm cut
themselves.
- Girls are nearly four times more likely to self-harm than
boys.
- The most common reason given was 'to find relief from a
terrible situation,' the least common reason was 'to get my own
back.'
- 41 per cent of those who self-harm seek help from friends
before acting.
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