An overview of youth self-harm and suicide
Suicide and self-harm in the youth of Ireland is receiving an increasing amount of coverage over the last number of years, and with good reason. Unfortunately, Ireland is one of the most severely affected countries in the EU in this regard. While there is some recent cause for very cautious optimism, there is much work yet to be done.
While depression and self-harm is far more common in females than males, completed suicide remains far more common in males. In the past, one of the explanations given was that while females were more open about describing their feelings, males tended to “bottle them up”, and often resorted to drugs or alcohol to deal with their emotional distress. However, recent work done by the HSE has shown that drug and alcohol misuse is at least as prevalent in teenage females as males, suggesting that we have to look elsewhere for reasons.
While the suicide rate is a very important indicator, by no means does it tell the whole story. The rates of depression in young people are extremely important, because the level of impairment which depression causes can be marked, preventing young people from reaching their potential, and affecting them emotionally, academically and socially. The issue of self-harm has certainly generated much discussion over recent years, with some research suggesting that children as young as seven years old can engage in such activity. While this is very much the exception, it nonetheless backs up the impression that self-harm in young people is happening at a younger age, and appears to be more widespread. There are many reasons why people engage in self-harm, and it would be wrong to assume that everybody who engages in self-harm is suicidal, and equally it would be incorrect to assume that everybody who engages in self-harm is depressed. Nonetheless, it does represent a worrying act because of its associations.
The most common forms of serious self-harm are cutting (particularly to the arms, but less frequently to the legs, abdomen and torso) or poisoning (particularly with over-the-counter medications), and choking/hanging (which is more common in completed suicides).