Clinical and demographic risk profiles of non-suicidal self-injury among pediatric emergency department presentations: a three-year retrospective study.
Female sex strongly associated with non-suicidal self-injury presentations in pediatric emergency department.
Clinical and demographic risk profiles of non-suicidal self-injury among pediatric emergency department presentations: a three-year retrospective study.
This study aimed to evaluate the sociodemographic characteristics and clinical profiles of pediatric patients presenting to an emergency department (emergency department) with non-suicidal self-injury (non-suicidal self-injury).
This retrospective case-control study included 36 children presenting to the emergency department with non-suicidal self-injury and 50 age- and sex-comparable controls presenting with non-psychiatric complaints between 2019 and 2022.
The mean age of the non-suicidal self-injury group was 15.58 ± 1.61 years, and 80.6% of the patients were female.
The most frequently reported methods were self-poisoning and self-cutting.
The age-at-onset distribution demonstrated a distinct peak at age 15 (52.8%), with a secondary peak at age 10 (22.2%).
The model explained 30.4% of the variance.
The findings suggest that pediatric non-suicidal self-injury presentations are not isolated events but are frequently accompanied by ongoing psychiatric vulnerability, recurrent emergency department utilization, and psychotropic treatment.
The observed age-at-onset pattern, characterized by a peak at age 15 and a secondary peak at age 10, indicates that vulnerability to non-suicidal self-injury may emerge during different developmental periods.