ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2019
Non-fatal self-harm in Scottish military veterans: a retrospective cohort study of 57,000 veterans and 173,000 matched non-veterans.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- 'Man up and get on with it': a qualitative exploration of UK ex-serving personnel's experiences of seeking help for self-harm and suicidal behaviours.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Mental health service use among Canadian veterans within the first 5 years following service: methodological considerations for comparisons with the general population.Occupational and environmental medicine · 2023Article
- Canadian Veteran chronic disease prevalence and health services use in the five years following release: a matched retrospective cohort study using routinely collected data.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Outside the Military "Bubble": Life After Service for UK Ex-armed Forces Personnel.Frontiers in public health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAlthough suicide risk in veterans has been widely studied, there is little information on the risk of non-fatal self-harm in this population. We used data from the Scottish Veterans Health Study to conduct an epidemiological analysis of self-harm in veterans, in comparison with people who have never served.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective, 30-year cohort study of 56,205 veterans born 1945-1985, and 172,741 people with no record of military service, and used Cox proportional hazard models to examine the association between veteran status and cumulative risk of non-fatal self-harm, overall and stratified by birth cohort, sex and length of service. We also examined mental and physical comorbidities, and association of suicide with prior self-harm.
resultsThere were 1620 (2.90%) first episodes of self-harm in veterans, compared with 4212 (2.45%) in non-veterans. The difference was statistically significant overall (unadjusted HR 1.27, 95% CI 1.21-1.35, p < 0.001). The risk was highest in the oldest veterans, and in the early service leavers who failed to complete initial training (unadjusted HR 1.69, 95% CI 1.50-1.91, p < 0.001). The risk reduced with longer service and in the intermediate birth cohorts but has increased again in the youngest cohort.
conclusionsThe highest risk of non-fatal self-harm was in veterans with the shortest service, especially those who did not complete training or minimum engagement, and in the oldest birth cohorts, whilst those who had served the longest were at reduced risk. The risk has increased again in the youngest veterans, and further study of this subgroup is indicated.
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