Veronica S C Pisinger1, Keith Hawton2, Janne S Tolstrup1. 1. 1 National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. 2. 2 Centre for Suicide Research, Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK.
Abstract
AIM: Strong associations have been found between being exposed to self-harm in family and friends and own self-harm in adolescence. Therefore, self-harm and suicide behaviour might tend to cluster within school and school classes. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence, frequency and type of self-harm, suicide ideation and suicide attempts within Danish high schools and to test whether self-harm and suicide behaviour cluster in schools and school classes. METHODS: Data came from the Danish National Youth Study 2014, a national survey. The respective study included 66,284 high-school students nested in 117 schools and 3146 school classes. The prevalence and clustering of self-harm behaviour, ever and within the last year, type of self-harm (e.g. cutting, burning, scratching and hitting) and suicide ideation and suicide attempts were investigated. Multi-level logistic regression was applied to quantify clustering among participants within the same class and school. RESULTS: In total, 12,960 (20%) reported self-harm ever and 5706 (8.6%) within the last year. Prevalence was higher among girls than boys. Among girls, cutting (15%) and scratching (13%) was the most common type of self-harm, whereas among boys, hitting (6.7%) was most prevalent. The degree of clustering of self-harm and suicide behaviour was low, with school-level intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) ranging from 0.8-1.8% and school class level ICC's from 4.3-6.8%. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that self-harm was common, especially in girls. The degree of clustering of self-harm and suicide behaviour in school and school classes was low.
AIM: Strong associations have been found between being exposed to self-harm in family and friends and own self-harm in adolescence. Therefore, self-harm and suicide behaviour might tend to cluster within school and school classes. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence, frequency and type of self-harm, suicide ideation and suicide attempts within Danish high schools and to test whether self-harm and suicide behaviour cluster in schools and school classes. METHODS: Data came from the Danish National Youth Study 2014, a national survey. The respective study included 66,284 high-school students nested in 117 schools and 3146 school classes. The prevalence and clustering of self-harm behaviour, ever and within the last year, type of self-harm (e.g. cutting, burning, scratching and hitting) and suicide ideation and suicide attempts were investigated. Multi-level logistic regression was applied to quantify clustering among participants within the same class and school. RESULTS: In total, 12,960 (20%) reported self-harm ever and 5706 (8.6%) within the last year. Prevalence was higher among girls than boys. Among girls, cutting (15%) and scratching (13%) was the most common type of self-harm, whereas among boys, hitting (6.7%) was most prevalent. The degree of clustering of self-harm and suicide behaviour was low, with school-level intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) ranging from 0.8-1.8% and school class level ICC's from 4.3-6.8%. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that self-harm was common, especially in girls. The degree of clustering of self-harm and suicide behaviour in school and school classes was low.
Authors: Ruth Benson; Jan Rigby; Christopher Brunsdon; Grace Cully; Lay San Too; Ella Arensman Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2022-04-27 Impact factor: 4.614
Authors: Martina Di Simplicio; Elizabeth Appiah-Kusi; Paul Wilkinson; Peter Watson; Caroline Meiser-Stedman; David J Kavanagh; Emily A Holmes Journal: Suicide Life Threat Behav Date: 2020-02-14