ArticleThe British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science2022
Factors influencing self-harm thoughts and behaviours over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: longitudinal analysis of 49 324 adults.
Article in The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- SARS-CoV-2 Infection and the Risk of Suicidal and Self-Harm Thoughts and Behaviour: A Systematic Review.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2022Pooled it
- Among key social determinants, connection associated with lowest odds of non-suicidal self-injury and suicidal ideation among Australian youth.The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry · 2026Article
- Exploring the unique and cumulative effects of individual-level and social determinants on suicidal ideation trajectories during health and environmental crises - a longitudinal study of Australians.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Cumulative social adversity as a correlate of self harm: Validity of the Reward Probability Index.PloS one · 2026Article
- Substance Use, Internet Risk Behavior, and Depressive Symptoms as Predictors of Self-harm Thoughts in Adolescents: Insights from the 2019 ESPAD Survey in Croatia.Child psychiatry and human development · 2025Article
- Structural modeling of self-harming behaviors based on personality organization with the mediating role of childhood traumas and reflective function in militaries with borderline personality disorder and healthy people.Journal of education and health promotion · 2025Article
- Risk Factors for Suicidal Behavior in Youth and the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Retrospective Case-Control Study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Association between patterns of biological rhythm and self-harm: evidence from the baoxing youth mental health (BYMH) cohort.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2024Article
- Trends and factors influencing the mental health of college students in the post-pandemic: four consecutive cross-sectional surveys.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Article
- Suicidal ideation following self-reported COVID-19-like symptoms or serology-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in France: A propensity score weighted analysis from a cohort study.PLoS medicine · 2023Article
- Risk and protective factors for new-onset binge eating, low weight, and self-harm symptoms in >35,000 individuals in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic.The International journal of eating disorders · 2023Article
- Non-suicidal self-injury and emotional burden among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic: cross-sectional online survey.BJPsych open · 2022Article
- Age and sex differences in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and coping mechanisms in Latin American youth.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Article
- College students' screening early warning factors in identification of suicide risk.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- The interaction between social factors and adversities on self-harm during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal analysis of 49 227 UK adults.BJPsych open · 2022Article
- Hospital presentations for self-poisoning during COVID-19 in Sri Lanka: an interrupted time-series analysis.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThere is concern that the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath will result in excess suicides by increasing known risk factors such as self-harm, but evidence on how pandemic-related risk factors contribute to changes in these outcomes is lacking.
aimsTo examine how different COVID-19-related experiences of and worries about adversity contribute to changes in self-harm thoughts and behaviours.
methodData from 49 324 UK adults in the University College London COVID-19 Social Study were analysed (1 April 2020 to 17 May 2021). Fixed-effects regressions explored associations between weekly within-person variation in five categories of adversity experience and adversity worries with changes in self-harm thoughts and behaviours across age groups (18-29, 30-44, 45-59 and 60+ years).
resultsIn total, 26.1% and 7.9% of respondents reported self-harm thoughts and behaviours respectively at least once over the study period. The number of adverse experiences was more strongly related to outcomes than the number of worries. The largest specific adversity contributing to increases in both outcomes was having experienced physical or psychological abuse. Financial worries increased the likelihood of both outcomes in most age groups, and having had COVID-19 increased the likelihood of both outcomes in young (18-29 years) and middle-aged (45-59 years) adults.
conclusionsFindings suggest that a significant portion of UK adults may be at increased risk for self-harm thoughts and behaviours during the pandemic. Given the likelihood that the economic and social consequences of the pandemic will accumulate, policy makers can begin adapting evidence-based suicide prevention strategies and other social policies to help mitigate its consequences.
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