Understanding self-harm

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Short Report

Nearly a thousand people, 827 of whom had first hand experience of self-harm, took part in SANE’s self-harm study, which started in 2005. Over five hundred participants were still harming at the time of filling in the survey. The most commonly reported method was cutting/scratching (93%) or burning (28%) the skin and the most frequently targeted body parts were arms (83%) and thighs/legs (50%). A fifth had overdosed on medicines. It seemed to us that majority of participants, when answering further questions about self-harm, were thinking mainly of cutting/scratching or burning. The functions and motives of overdosing seemed to differ slightly from those associated with cutting and burning. Have you got a view on this? Click here to email us.

Despite being thought of as something that teenagers and young adults do, the results from our survey show that self-harm affects people of all ages. The age range of those who were still harming at the time they took part was 12-59 years of age, and while some people were reporting that they had first started self-harming as young as four, others had not harmed until they were in their late fifties.

Although the majority were female, just over a hundred men who had at some time harmed themselves took part in the survey (this made up 12% of all participants who had harmed). It is still unclear whether self-harm really is that much more in common in girls/women than in boys/men, or whether the former are just more willing to talk about it and seek help.