Self-harming behavior and its relation with previous psychological or psychiatric care

The study was realized in cooperation with grant support: MUNI/A/0790/2012 "Verifying the psychometric properties of diagnostic tools for screening the incidence and forms of self-harm among school children". This study explores self-harming behavior among adolescents (12-15 years old) and its relation with previous psychological or psychiatric care. There is a connection to the process occurrence type of self-harm between adolescents who have been or are in psychological or psychiatric care and those who were never been. The results can spread our knowledge about self-harm behavior, which is very common teenage phenomenon. Furthermore, it can be used to specify the support for adolescents who do self-harm. In accordance with the research objectives were quantitative, exploratory data, in a one-shot cross-sectional survey using self-report measures. Our sample was 1110 adolescents between 12 to 15 years old. In our sample were 84 adolescents who do or did self-harm. The methods for measuring self-harm included the Self-Harm Inventory (SHI; Sansone, Sansone, & Wiederman, 1995). The main differences were found in occurrence of self-harm behavior between children who have never been in psychological or psychiatric care (20%) and the others (40%). Small differences were found also in different type of self-harm behavior. On the other hand we did not find differences in the self-harm process.There are differences between those adolescents who have never been in psychological or psychiatric care and the others. We hope that the results of this study could help to understand the self-harming behavior, which is currently spreading among adolescents. It could be a useful guide for those, who are working with the youth.