Variations in Risk and Treatment Factors Among Adolescents Engaging in Different Types of Deliberate Self-Harm in an Inpatient Sample

This study employs a framework adopted in 2008 by Jacobson, Muehlenkamp, Miller, and Turner to explore differences in risk and treatment factors in a sample of 476 adolescent inpatients grouped with relation to their involvement in deliberately self-harmful (DSH) behavior. Participants were assigned to groups indicating no DSH, nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) only, suicide attempts (SA) only, and NSSI + SA. Groups were compared with respect to their status on a variety of background risk factors (e.g., maltreatment, presenting psychopathology, family history) and in-treatment behaviors (e.g., critical incidents resulting from self-injurious gestures) linked to DSH. Findings generally supported the conclusions drawn by Jacobson et al. in terms of the overall severity of youth exhibiting NSSI + SA, with some important similarities observed between the NSSI-only and NSSI + SA groups.