Maternal criticism and non-suicidal self-injury in school-aged children

Although non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant public health concern in youth, most of the extant research on NSSI has focused on adults and, to a lesser extent, adolescents. Therefore, little is known about the correlates and potential risk factors for NSSI in school-aged children. One factor that may be particularly important to children is their exposure to maternal criticism. Thus, the goal of this study was to examine the association between maternal expressed emotion-criticism (EE-Criticism) and NSSI in children, and to determine whether this relation is similar for girls and boys. Participants were 204 children (ages 7-11; 39.7% female, 81.9% Caucasian) and their mothers. Participants completed interviews assessing the child's history of NSSI. Mothers completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample to determine levels of EE-Criticism toward their child. We found that girls exposed to high levels of EE-Criticism were more likely to have a lifetime history of NSSI than girls of mothers exhibiting low levels of EE-Criticism; however, the relation between EE-Criticism and NSSI was not significant for boys. These results are consistent with interpersonal models of risk for NSSI, but suggest that one interpersonal factor, maternal criticism, is more strongly related to NSSI in girls than in boys.