Depression, anxiety can lead teens to self-cutting
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It's a pretty common scenario at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, says adolescent medicine specialist Jonathan Pletcher.
"We'll see a girl who's having menstrual problems, missing periods," he said. "And the reason she's having menstrual problems is because she's lost weight, and the reason she's lost weight is because she's depressed, and part of her dealing with that is cutting as well."
For those unfamiliar with the term, "cutting" means the patient is intentionally slicing open wounds on his or her body. It's the most common form of non-suicidal self-injury by young patients suffering from emotional problems like depression or anxiety.
And just how often does Dr. Pletcher see a self-injurer?
"I do all adolescent health," he said, "so I'm seeing it on a weekly basis."
David Brent, the psychiatrist who directs Services for Teens at Risk at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic-UPMC, also sees such patients regularly.
"I run an out-patient program, and we see a lot of kids who engage in that. It's not necessarily their main problem," Dr. Brent said.
"If you do a community survey you find 15 percent of adolescents have done this at least once," he added. "In the psychiatric population it's much higher, associated with depression and anxiety, things associated with being in a psychiatric hospital."
It's commonly thought that most self-injurers are non-suicidal, that they're just using the physical pain of cutting or burning or bruising themselves to get rid of a negative emotion, but Dr. Brent said that's not necessarily the case.
"Some of them are suicidal as well," he said. "In fact, kids who engage in non-suicidal self-injury also have a higher risk for suicide, and I think it's because both types of behaviors are related to the same kinds of risk behaviors. So non-suicidal self-injury behavior and suicidal behavior are two different types of behavior, but we often see them in the same people.
"The non-suicidal self-injury is either to get rid of a negative emotion or feeling numb or to get attention or to get out of a difficult social situation -- like being bullied -- but there's no intent or desire to die. It's often superficial cutting."
First Published February 28, 2011 12:00 am
