Call for self-harm risk assessments to be carried out in A&E departments

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.

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.

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.