Self harming Goths. Who'd a thunk it?

[drpete]

Between seven and 14 per cent of people in the UK deliberately harm themselves. MRC researchers have shown that those who identify with the “Goth” subculture are more likely to self harm or attempt suicide than other young people. Led by Robert Young of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, the team tracked more than 1200 young

Comments

[dougs]

There's a vast yawning gulf between having "admitted to self-harming at some point" and bearing evidence of self-harm. It's entirely possible to self-harm without leaving evidence that's easily spotted, and it's entirely possible to admit to self-harm without having inflicted any. Both of these factors make the discrepancy between the published figures and your intuition more believable.

[medusa]

Yes, I punch and slap myself and pull my own hair out which apparently counts as self harm but doesn't leave any evidence. It doesn't always involve cuts to the arms. :(

[steer]

Is this the same work as from last year. If so then it was self identification which marked "goth" but the sample size was small enough that only about six individuals were actually self-harming goths. Then, that doesn't tally with the numbers you gave here so perhaps this is a larger follow up study.

In last years work I assume there were errors between the paper and the press-pack given out (or at least journalists in different sources reported numbers different from those in the press pack).

I'd be interested to see the pdf. Email: richard@richardclegg.org.

[brixtonbrood]

The fact that it says "those who identified most strongly" had a 50% incidence of self-harm, may mean that we're talking about rather fewer than the 80-odd with some degree of gothicity.

[steer]

Eight from a total of fifteen as it turns out. It is still statistically significant at the 5% level assuming their methodology is unflawed (hard to tell from the paper itself).

[mr_tom]

...but on the plus side, it saves us the bother of harming them ourselves...

[chiller]

This sort of article worries me a bit because most people will read it and imagine that hanging out with goth kids will make their own more likely to self-harm. Whereas it's probably more true to say that someone who is predisposed to self-harm is likely to be attracted to the goth thing, because there they have more chance to be open about it, and to talk to other people who aren't going to recoil and treat them as if they're nutters.

Self-harm is a funny old topic.

[brixtonbrood]

All the coverage I've seen has been very careful to point out that
a) there is strong correlation but no evidence of causation and
b) there is some reason to believe that having a goth social life is a good thing for vulnerable teens

But then of course I have no idea how the Daily Mail covered it.

[chiller]

Oh, I think we can hazard a pretty good guess as to how the Daily Mail handled it. ;)

[moral_vacuum]

And IIRC they did as expected.

[abigail_42]

Just as a slight tangent, but Daniel has just turned 6 and finding clothes for him that don't have skulls, tanks, guns, etc. it getting increasingly difficult - and he is only 6, I really don't want him wearing that kind of stuff *just* yet.
So I think the clothing manufacturers need a bit of a talking too - and I'm really thankful I don't have girls with the state of some of their stuff, in my experience they are asking for pierced ears, tattoos etc from the age of 3 or 4! Daniel also keeps telling me he is grown up now he is 6 so he gets to make all the decisions (to which the answer is obviously "so go and get a job")
Anyway I went into rant mode and will stop. Sorry!