Self-injuries In Adolescents

Non-suicidal Self-injury (NSSI) refers to the direct, deliberate, and socially unacceptable destruction of ones body tissue without conscious suicidal intent. Common NSSI acts include self-cutting, burning, biting, scratching, and self-hitting. Previous research showed that the lifetime prevalence of NSSI ranged between 15% and 30.7%, the 12-month prevalence ranged from 7.5% to 22%, and the 6-month prevalence ranged from 13.9% to 16.3%. As a highly dangerous behavior, NSSI can predict future suicide attempt. Thus, it is important to understand why adolescents engage in NSSI. With the aim of testing this hypothesis, we conducted a follow-up study with secondary school students. We used Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) to examine the effects of negative emotional experiences (depression and dissociative experience) and behavioral impulsivity on later engagement in NSSI, as well as the moderating effect and behavioral impulsivity. GEE is suitable for longitudinal data analysis, and can help to explore the impact of independent variables on subsequent changes of dependent variables. Since research directly testing the “Pragmatic Hypothesis” is still scarce, to get a better understanding of the reason for NSSI, efforts should still be made to further test this hypothesis by adopting different methods. This study supports the emotion regulation function of NSSI. Behavior impulsivity also significantly influences future engagement in this behavior. Effects of Negative Emotional Experience and Behavior Impulsivity on Non-suicidal Self-injury in Adolescents: A Follow-up Study YOU Jia-ning

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Last date updated on July, 2025