Young People Who Self-harm

Background: Self-harm among young people in the UK is possibly increasing but little is known about the reasons young people give for cessation and their link with gender or employment status.

Aims: To investigate self-harm in young people, prevalence, methods used, motivations for starting and ceasing, service use, and how these are related to gender, parental social class and current labour market position.

Method: Population-based survey of 1258 18- to 20-year-olds living in the Central Clydeside Conurbation, Scotland.

Results: Both past and current rates of self-harm were highest among those outside the labour market. This group was most likely to want to kill themselves and did not cite specialist mental health services as helpful in ceasing self-harm. Those in full-time education more often self-harmed for a brief time, mainly to reduce anxiety.

Conclusions: Current labour market position was a stronger predictor than parental social class or gender for self-harm, and was linked to level of severity, motivation for starting and ceasing, and service utilisation.