Scots teenage girls Europe's worst for inflicting self-harm

TEENAGE girls in Scotland are harming themselves with knives and cigarettes or overdosing on pills at a greater rate than anywhere else in Europe, a survey has revealed.

Nearly one in three secondary schoolgirls in Edinburgh admitted harming themselves by cutting or stabbing with knives, pulling out hair, bruising, pinching, burning skin or overdosing on pills.

The Scottish statistics compare with a UK rate of one in ten teenagers owning up to harming themselves, and are the highest in Europe.

Celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp have all confessed to self-harm. But campaigners have pointed out that most self-harmers are afraid to admit they release their anger or sadness through cutting, and they have called for more help in schools, through training teachers and providing advice.

Researchers from Edinburgh University interviewed 4,300 young people from 23 local secondaries, eight independent schools and nine special-needs schools.

Dr Lesley McAra, who led the research team, found about 28 per cent of the fourth-year girls questioned admitted some form of self-harm, compared with 12 per cent of boys of the same age.

She said: "About the age of 14 and 15, one in three girls and one in eight boys in the cohort reported that they had self-harmed. This compares with one in ten in the UK figures."

The survey also found that incidents of self-harm peaked during the third and fourth years of secondary school.

Dr McAra added that, during the survey, 169 fifth-year girls said they had attempted suicide, compared with 57 boys. She said: "That makes up 5 per cent of the total cohort, and that to me seems an extraordinarily high figure."

The law lecturer blamed depression, social deprivation, drugs and bullying as contributing factors.

However, she said her research did not suggest the capital was in the grip of a self-harm epidemic.

She said: "The reason for the figures being so high was that the rate of disclosure was much higher than anywhere else in the UK."

Dinah Morley, the deputy director of the charity Young Minds, said self-harm could just be a teenage phase - the practice is known to occur in "outbreaks" in much the same way as other fads. But she said it must always be taken seriously because of the few cases that develop into serious injuries or even suicide.

She said: "Their behaviour should not be ignored as copy-cat or attention-seeking. It should be taken seriously because, although some of those cases are not likely to be significant problems, in some cases ... it may lead to attempted suicide."

She called for increased awareness among parents and teachers so they can direct children to local services such as the Edinburgh Self-Harm Project, or helplines such as the Samaritans.

Dr Gynedd Lloyd, head of educational studies at the Moray House teacher training college in Edinburgh, said schools could do more to stop children self-harming.

She suggested creating safe places, taking more time to listen and promoting mental health initiatives. She said: "As a profession we are enormously powerful in the lives of young women. We make decisions which are life-changing. We need to study that and think about it. We could resist a lot of the sorting and classifying."

Linda Dunion, campaign director of See Me, which works to end mental health stigma, said many youngsters were afraid to speak out - despite the fact the earlier people seek help the more likely they are to recover. She said: "There is help out there and the sooner you get it the better, because it is very distressing for a young person to self-harm - there is clearly something wrong."