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. 2024 Dec 4;10(6):e213.
doi: 10.1192/bjo.2024.763.

Self-harm-related mental health presentations to emergency departments by children and young people from culturally and linguistically diverse groups in South Western Sydney

James Rufus John  1 , Jahidur Rahman Khan  2 , Paul M Middleton  3 , Yao Huang  4 , Daniel Ping-I Lin  5 , Nan Hu  2 , Bin Jalaludin  6 , Paul Chay  5 , Raghu Lingam  2 , Valsamma Eapen  7
Affiliations

Self-harm-related mental health presentations to emergency departments by children and young people from culturally and linguistically diverse groups in South Western Sydney

James Rufus John et al. BJPsych Open. .

Abstract

Background: Rates of self-harm among children and young people (CYP) have been on the rise, presenting major public health concerns in Australia and worldwide. However, there is a scarcity of evidence relating to self-harm among CYP from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.

Aims: To analyse the relationship between self-harm-related mental health presentations of CYP to emergency departments and CALD status in South Western Sydney (SWS), Australia.

Method: We analysed electronic medical records of mental health-related emergency department presentations by CYP aged between 10 and up to 18 years in six public hospitals in the SWS region from January 2016 to March 2022. A multilevel logistic regression model was used on these data to assess the association between self-harm-related presentations and CALD status while adjusting for covariates and individual-level clustering.

Results: Self-harm accounted for 2457 (31.5%) of the 7789 mental health-related emergency department presentations by CYP; CYP from a CALD background accounted for only 8% (n = 198) of the self-harm-related presentations. CYP from the lowest two most socioeconomic disadvantaged areas made 63% (n = 1544) of the total self-harm-related presentations. Findings of the regression models showed that CYP from a CALD background (compared with those from non-CALD backgrounds) had 19% lower odds of self-harm (adjusted odds ratio 0.81, 95% CI 0.66-0.99).

Conclusions: Findings of this study provide insights into the self-harm-related mental health presentations and other critical clinical features related to CYP from CALD backgrounds that could better inform health service planning and policy to manage self-harm presentations and mental health problems among CYP.

Keywords: Self-harm; adolescents; culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background; emergency department; mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proportion of self-harm-related mental health emergency department presentations by children and young people (10–17 years of age) between January 2016 and March 2022. The x-axis shows the number (n) of all emergency department mental health presentations in this age group by year. The data relate to six public hospitals in South Western Sydney, Australia.
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