Mothers' Awareness of Self-Harm Behaviors in Their Children

Abstract

This study examined mothers' awareness of seven self-harm behaviors in their adolescents who were being seen in an outpatient psychiatry clinic—namely, cutting self, burning self, hitting self, banging head, scratching self, preventing wounds from healing, attempting suicide. Using a cross-sectional self-report survey method with 71 mother—adolescent pairs, the study found (a) that self-harm behaviors were reported by 63.4% of the adolescent participants, most commonly, preventing wounds from healing and scratching self; (b) that there was a moderate level of concordance between mother and adolescent with regard to behaviors that were not being performed; (c) that in most cases of discordance, the mother denied a behavior that the adolescent indicated as having actually performed, most commonly, preventing wounds from healing; and (d) that mothers were significantly less likely to acknowledge self-harm behaviors in their adolescents as the number of self-harm behaviors reported by offspring increased (r = —.87, p < .001).