UK REPORT

Self-harm epidemic now starts at age eight

Children as young as eight are cutting and injuring themselves as the rates of self-harm in Britain increase. Experts leading a national inquiry into the problem have received information from patients which suggests that some are very young when they start deliberately hurting themselves. The number of people involved appears to be on the increase. The charity Childline has reported that it counselled 4,000 self-harmers last year, up 30 per cent on the year before.
The new figures follow the revelation from Olympic athlete Dame Kelly Holmes that she started to cut herself a year before her double gold win in the 2004 Olympics. She said last weekend that she went through two months of inflicting cuts upon herself after injuries threatened to ruin her career. However, her family and sports coach knew nothing about it.

Holmes, 35, was training with world 800 metres champion Maria Mutola in the French Pyrenees, but was in constant agony from a damaged calf and tissue strain, leaving her unable to run properly. “I thought I was cursed. It's the lowest I've ever, ever been,” she said. “I'd locked myself in the bathroom and turn on the taps so nobody could hear me crying. I saw a pair of scissors. I picked them up, and started to cut my left arm.”
She said it was not a suicide attempt. “I knew deep inside that I wouldn't go any further. The whole episode was nothing more than a cry of despair.”
The national inquiry, which was launched last year by the Mental Health Foundation and Camelot, the organisation that runs the lottery, focuses on 11 to 25-year-olds and is looking at why they physically harm themselves, often by cutting or burning. The behaviour can be triggered by bullying, bereavement, pressure at work, abuse, financial problems or pressure to fit in and relationship problems.

But, contrary to popular belief, people who harm themselves are not trying to commit suicide. They use self-harm to cope with difficult emotions. Instead of expressing their feelings openly, they take them out on their bodies by cutting or burning, picking their skin, taking an overdose, bruising themselves or pulling their hair out.
The chair of the inquiry, Catherine McLoughlin, said some of the 200 people who had given them information reported that they started at the age of eight.
McLoughlin, a psychiatric nurse, said: “There is a considerable incidence of self-harm across the age groups. We cannot yet say how prevalent it is at the age of eight, but we have anecdotal evidence that it can begin at this age, which is very worrying.”
Every year 24,000 young people are admitted to UK hospitals after deliberately harming themselves. However, 170,000 people attend accident and emergency departments a year and 80,000 are sent home without any follow-up care or treatment.
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said it received thousands of calls from people who cut themselves to relieve mental pressures. “We believe self-harm has become almost an epidemic, particularly among young people, who are damaging themselves in increasingly disturbing ways.”

When the inquiry report is completed next year, it will produce guidelines for health professionals aimed at reducing the levels of harm. But the group believes simply telling people to stop, or spelling out the risks, may fail.
McLoughlin said: “The solution may not be to just say "stop it" because with a lot of teenagers that's not going to work. Instead it is about minimising and managing that risk. For example, they need to know how to clean up a wound and how to put antiseptic on it.”

Jo Revill, health editor
5 June 2005

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1499582,00.html

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