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Published on: September 19, 2019
Parental and community risk factors for childhood self-harm thoughts and behaviours
Kirstie O'Hare1, Oliver Watkeys1, Tyson Whitten2
1Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Background:
Childhood self-harm is rare but increasing in frequency. Little is known about risk factors specifically for self-harm in preteen children.
Methods:
We examined self-harm thoughts and behaviours in children aged 3-14 years in association with parental and community-level risk factors, using a large general population-based record linkage sample (n = 74,479).
Results:
Parental factors were strongly associated with childhood self-harm, with over three-quarters of children with self-harm having a parent with a history of mental disorder and/or criminal offending. Community-level factors (socioeconomic deprivation, remote or regional location, and neighbourhood crime rate) were not associated with childhood self-harm after adjustment for confounding factors.
Limitations:
Measures of self-harm thoughts and behaviours derived from administrative data likely underestimate the prevalence of self-harm in the population.
Conclusions:
Intergenerational transmission of risk factors is likely an important contributor to childhood self-harm.
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