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	A new report has found that young people with the highest risk for repeated self-harm were 15 to 19-year-old females and males in their early 20s, resulting in calls for risk assessments for anyone presenting at emergency departments with self-harm injuries.</p>
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	The study, entitled Risk of repeated self-harm and associated factors in children, adolescents and young adults and led by Marco Bennardi of the National Suicide Research Foundation alongside Dr Ella Arensman of the NSRF and others, was published in the BMC Psychiatry journal.</p>
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	Taking data on consecutive self-harm presentations from the National Self-Harm Registry Ireland, it analysed a total sample of 28,700 individuals involving 42,642 presentations between 2007 and 2014.</p>
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	According to the report: &ldquo;Repetition of self-harm occurred in 19.2% of individuals during the first year following a first presentation, of whom the majority (62.7%) engaged in one repeated act. Overall, the risk of repeated self-harm was similar between males and females. However, in the 20 to 24-year-old age group males were at higher risk than females.&rdquo;</p>
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	It said that among females, adolescents aged 15 to 19 years old were at higher risk than young emerging adults aged 20&ndash;24.</p>
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	It also found that the risk of repeated self-harm increased significantly with the number of previous self-harm episodes.</p>
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	The report also found that the risk of repeat self-harming was higher among those who did not undergo a mental health assessment when they presented with their physical injuries.</p>
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	According to the report: &ldquo;To prevent risk of repeated self-harm in young people, all individuals presenting at emergency departments due to self-harm should be provided with a risk assessment including psychosocial characteristics, history of self-harm and time between first presentations.&rdquo;</p>
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	A separate study in which Dr Arensman and Marco Bennardi were also involved, examined 121 consecutive suicides between 2007 and 2012 in Cork city and county, with a comparison made between 15 to 24-year-olds and 25 to 34-year-old individuals.</p>
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	It found that alcohol and/or drugs were detected through toxicological analysis for the majority of the total sample (79.5%), with the older age group more likely to have those substances in their system.</p>
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	According to this report: &ldquo;Younger individuals who died between Saturday and Monday were more likely to have had alcohol before dying. Substance abuse histories were similar in the two age groups.&rdquo;</p>
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	In addition to other recommendations, the authors of the report said: &ldquo;Based on this research it is recommended that strategies to reduce substance abuse be applied among 25-34-year-old individuals at risk of suicide.&rdquo;</p>
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	According to Dr Arensman: &ldquo;I still don&rsquo;t think it is a coincidence we are seeing ongoing challenges with alcohol and drug abuses because one of our earlier studies showed a significant number of young people use or abuse alcohol or drugs as a coping strategy.&rdquo;</p>
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	However, Dr Arensman said that schools who had engaged with programmes aimed at suicide prevention and reducing self-harm had seen improvements and that it was pushing for a further roll-out of programmes such as those associated with Connecting for Life, the national strategy to reduce suicide.</p>
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	www.childline.ie or call 1800 66 66 66 www.samaritans.ie or call 116 123</p>
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	(Published by the Irish Examiner on the 12th January 2017)</p>
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	<a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/call-for-self-harm-risk-assessments-to-be-carried-out-in-ae-departments-438721.html">https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/call-for-self-harm-risk-assessments-to-be-carried-out-in-ae-departments-438721.html</a></p>
