Those who resort to self-harm, prone to commit acts of violence against others: Study

(Image for representational purposes only)

New Delhi: Self-harm or self-injury is an act of an individual deliberately and repeatedly inflicting harm to his/her own body in an impulsive way. However, it not intended to be lethal.

Although it's typically not meant as a suicide attempt, self-injury is an unhealthy way to cope with emotional pain, intense anger and frustration.

Self-harm remains a misunderstood condition even today and can happen to people of all ages, ethnic groups and religions.

There are many reasons that lead one to inflict self-harm, but in most cases people do it to cope with their overwhelming mental or emotional health problems, such as anxiety, depression.

Now, a study has further deepened the severity and graveness of the condition saying that those who are prone to self-harm are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against others.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden studied about 1,850,525 individuals in total and followed them from age 15.

During the study period about 55,185 received self-harm associated clinical care, 66,561 were convicted of a violent crime, and about 8,155 were both exposed to self-harm and convicted of a violent crime.

Researchers found that individuals who had at some time received clinical care for self-harm ran a five-fold risk of being convicted for a violent crime compared with those who had never received care for self-harm.

Almost as many men as women received clinical care for self-harm during the study period.

The risk of violent crime conviction was particularly high for self-harming women with comorbid substance abuse, with a seven times increased risk for violent crime conviction, compared to women who had never received clinical care for self-harm, researchers said.

Even after controlling for relevant confounders, such as psychiatric co-morbidity and socioeconomic factors, self-harm was still associated with a doubled risk of violent crime conviction, a finding that remained when men and women were analysed separately.

"A susceptibility to self-harm seems to increase the risk of violent expression, but we found no support for the hypothesis that self-harm causes violence crime," said Hanna Sahlin of Karolinska Institutet.

"When we reversed the analysis and examined the risk of self-harm in individuals convicted of a violent crime, we found a similar association," Sahlin said.

"Taken together, this suggests that self-harm behaviour and violent criminality is a manifestation of a common underlying vulnerability," she said.

"We need to ask about aggressive behaviour towards others when we assess and treat self-harming individuals, but we also need to ask about self-harm when we assess and treat aggressive individuals," Sahlin said.

The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

(Wih PTI inputs)