More troubled teens turning to self-harm

Troubled New Zealand teenagers are succumbing to the phenomenon of self-harm, and one expert says one in 10 high school students deliberately mutilate their bodies.

Many young people intentionally injure themselves without suicidal intent each year, engaging in skin-cutting, head-banging, self-burning and biting, and inserting and swallowing sharp objects, in a behavioural trend mental health experts say needs to be investigated.

Professor Peter Joyce, head of the Christchurch School of Medicine's psychological medicine department, has prepared a paper detailing self-mutilation data collected from outpatients receiving treatment for depression since 1994.

More than 20 per cent of the 195 patients surveyed reported having mutilated themselves.

"We know very little about it, about why it happens or doesn't happen," Professor Joyce said.

"But almost inevitably patients describe an intensely distressed, spaced-out feeling, which is improved with pain. They often describe the harming as relieving that tension."

He said no studies had been done to determine how widespread self-harm was, but he expected the lower end of the 10 per cent to 15 per cent quoted in overseas studies applied to New Zealand teens.

Britain has started a national inquiry into the phenomenon after a steep rise in self-harm hospital admissions, and internet websites for "cutters" abound.

Professor Joyce said most of those who harmed themselves were in their teens or early 20s.

Slightly more women than men were involved, but self-harm had been around for a long time, and occurred in all ages and social groups.

"We've got a 60-year-old woman still cutting herself regularly."

Self-harm was possibly increasing, although the lack of data made it impossible to say. Most people self-harmed in private and did not seek medical attention.

Canterbury District Health Board's child and adolescent mental health services clinical director, Harith Swadi, said that between March 2002 and March last year, 45 per cent of those admitted to the youth inpatient unit, for acute psychiatric patients aged 15 to 18 had deliberately harmed themselves.

- NZPA