Hospital care and repetition following self-harm: multicentre comparison of self-poisoning and self-injury

Abstract

Background: Quantitative research about self-harm largely deals with self-poisoning, despite the high incidence of self-injury.

Aims: We compared patterns of hospital care and repetition associated with self-poisoning and self-injury.

Method: Demographic and clinical data were collected in a multicentre, prospective cohort study, involving 10,498 consecutive episodes of self-harm at six English teaching hospitals.

Results: Compared with those who self-poisoned, people who cut themselves were more likely to have self-harmed previously and to have received support from mental health services, but they were far less likely to be admitted to the general hospital or receive a psychosocial assessment. Although only 17% of people repeated self-harm during the 18 months of study, survival analysis that takes account of all episodes revealed a repetition rate of 33% in the year following an episode: 47% after episodes of self-cutting and 31% after self-poisoning (P<0.001). Of those who repeated, a third switched method of self-harm.

Conclusions: Hospital services offer less to people who have cut themselves, although they are far more likely to repeat, than to those who have self-poisoned. Attendance at hospital should result in psychosocial assessment of needs regardless of method of self-harm.