Deliberate self-harm in an incarcerated population of youth: an examination of prevalence rates, risk, and protective factors
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Deliberate self-harm (DSH) is a major health concern, especially for high-risk populations such as incarcerated youth. DSH refers to socially unacceptable, deliberate behaviour that causes harm to the body regardless of intent to die. There is limited research concerning prevalence rates as well as risk and protective factors for high-risk, adolescent groups. Participants were recruited from a correctional facility for youth aged 12-18. Male (n = 36) and female (n = 51) incarcerated adolescents (N = 87; mean age = 15.9) completed a survey that measured social-demographic characteristics, current depressed mood, lifetime alcohol and drug use, perceptions of social support (availability and satisfaction), approach-avoidance coping, problem-solving confidence, and DSH. The prevalence rates (81% lifetime, 74% annual, and 51% while incarcerated) for this mainly Aboriginal and Métis population were much higher than previous offender, community, and hospital findings. Youth reported much higher rates of DSH on a checklist than in response to a general question previously used in such research, suggesting that previously reported prevalence rates are likely grossly underestimated. Hypotheses regarding risk and protective factors were only partially supported. Depressed mood and drug use were positively, directly related to annual DSH frequency. Depressed mood proved to be a significant risk factor as well for incarcerated DSH. Overall, protective factors did not predict DSH well for this group of offenders. Only approach coping was inversely related to DSH frequency. Participants in this study reported very low levels of protective factors, which likely affected the outcome of statistical analyses. In general, youth reported high rates of risk factors and low rates of protective factors. Rates of DSH warranting medical attention increased with duration and frequency of such behaviour, as did actually receiving medical attention. Although 74% of offenders indicated that medical attention had been warranted at least once, only 50% actually received medical attention. Offenders were equally likely to receive medical attention whether they had engaged in DSH once or repetitively. It is likely that offenders prefer to keep their behaviour private, which affects how often they seek medical attention, even if they believe it is warranted. Recommendations are advanced for detecting and responding to DSH in incarcerated youth.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".