Role of drink in self-harming revealed
The involvement of alcohol at the time the self-harm occurred increased to almost 44% for men aged between 25 and 29.
Among girls aged 10 to 14, just over 11% had consumed alcohol when they self-harmed. For women aged 25 to 29, alcohol was involved in almost 40% of cases.
The National Suicide Research Foundation chose to publish the figures before Christmas to highlight that alcohol was a crucial factor in self-harm among young people.
Director of research Ella Arensman said the study showed the need to increase alcohol awareness among pre-adolescent children.
Dr Arensman said: âThis new information shows that we should be introducing alcohol awareness programmes during childhood.
âThe number of episodes of self-harm where alcohol is involved increases at every five-year age band so we can see it is getting worse as boys and girls grow older.â
The research, based on self-harm presentations to all 40 hospitals in the country, shows that women are at risk of the depressive effects and lack of control resulting from binge drinking.
âThat is so clear now but young men and women just donât seem to be aware of that,â Dr Arensman said.
She said the foundation was surprised that the number of self-harm episodes, where alcohol was involved late on Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday morning, was higher among women than men.
Last year, 11,966 cases of hospital-treated deliberate self-harm involving 9,630 individuals were reported.
Alcohol was involved in 41% of all self-harm cases and was significantly more common in men who engaged in deliberate self-harm (44%) than women who self-harmed (37%).
The percentage of self-harm episodes during the week involving alcohol were similar for men and women but more men drank significantly more alcohol throughout the week.
* Anyone concerned about these issues can contact the Samaritans at 1850 609 090 or samaritans.org. Childline can be contacted at 1800 666 666 or childline.ie.
