Exposure to websites that encourage self-harm and suicide: Prevalence rates and association with actual thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide in the United States
Abstract
This article provides 12-month prevalence rates of youth exposure to websites which encourage self-harm or suicide and examines whether such exposure is related to thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide in the past 30 days. Data were collected via telephone from a nationally representative survey of 1560 Internet-using youth, ages 10–17 residing in the United States. One percent (95% CI: 0.5%, 1.5%) of youth reported visiting a website that encouraged self-harm or suicide. Youth who visited such websites were seven times more likely to say they had thought about killing themselves; and 11 times more likely to think about hurting themselves, even after adjusting for several known risk factors for thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide. Given that youth thinking about self-harm and suicide are more likely to visit these sites, they may represent an opportunity for identification of youth in need of crisis intervention.
Department
Psychology
Publication Date
12-2014
Journal Title
Journal of Adolescence
Publisher
Elsevier
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.09.011
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Kimberly J. Mitchell, Melissa Wells, Gisela Priebe, Michele L. Ybarra, Exposure to websites that encourage self-harm and suicide: Prevalence rates and association with actual thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide in the United States, Journal of Adolescence, Volume 37, Issue 8, December 2014, Pages 1335-1344, ISSN 0140-1971, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.09.011.