Child Abuse Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Child Abuse, including details on family violence, examinations, long-term effects, psychiatrics disorders.

Risk factors for deliberate self-harm among female college students: the role and interaction of childhood maltreatment, emotional inexpressivity, and affect intensity/reactivity.

Gratz KL

McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA. KLGratz@aol.com

Despite the clinical importance of deliberate self-harm, research on the risk factors for self-harm among nonclinical populations has been limited. This study examined the role of childhood maltreatment, emotional inexpressivity, and affect intensity/reactivity in the self-harm behavior of 249 female college students. Childhood maltreatment and low positive affect intensity/reactivity reliably distinguished women with frequent self-harm from women with no history of self-harm, as did the combination of greater maltreatment, greater inexpressivity, and higher levels of affect intensity/reactivity (global and negative). Among women with a history of self-harm, emotional inexpressivity was associated with more frequent self-harm, as was the combination of greater maltreatment, greater inexpressivity, and lower levels of positive affect intensity/reactivity.

Published 24 May 2006 in Am J Orthopsychiatry, 76(2): 238-50.
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