Teen girls are more likely to self-harm than boys, except in Asia

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-06-15 01:00

Australia; International

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***This media release contains information some readers may find distressing as it refers to data about mental health, suicide and self-harm. If you or anyone you know needs help, support is available now. Call Lifeline (Aus) on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or Lifeline (NZ) on 0800 543 354. ***

Canadian scientists brought together and re-analysed the data from 38 previous studies, including one Australian study, on self-harm among teens in 17 countries, representing a total of 266,491 people. They found self-harm is around twice as common among adolescent girls as it is among boys in North America and Europe, but not in Asia, where rates of self-harm are similar for girls and boys, and rates among boys are generally higher than in the other regions studied. In Australia, the difference in rates of self-harm between girls and boys was less stark than in North America and Europe, with 19% of girls reporting self-harm and 17% of boys. However, a single study may not conclusively capture the situation in Australia, the authors say. Cultural differences may explain why girls are more likely to self-harm than boys in the West but not in Asia, they say. However, they also stress that their findings cannot be extrapolated to the world as a whole because they could only include a relatively small selection of countries, and all the studies they re-analysed were in English, limiting their scope.