Suicide, self-injury and violence

Abstract

To the editor: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as direct, repetitive self-injury to bodily tissues without suicidal intent.1 The estimated prevalence of NSSI among adolescents is 17.2% worldwide2 with a comparable rate observed in China.3 As a behavioural addiction,4 NSSI poses a significant suicide risk,5 and is emerging as a major mental health problem among adolescents. To unravel this puzzle, the four-function model (FFM) distinguishes between interpersonal and intrapersonal functions, as well as positive and negative reinforcement functions,6 proving relatively comprehensive among various theoretical models. Despite its high prevalence rates and serious influences, adolescents and young adults with NSSI often seek information and social support online rather than offline from doctors or other professionals. One-third of young people with a history of self-injury report online help-seeking for self-injury.7 As of June 2023, China has a huge adolescent internet user base of close to 150 million.8 However, a limited number of studies have explored NSSI and online information-seeking and help-seeking in the Chinese context. Social media sites have raised concerns due to the presence of NSSI-related content.9 10 As one of the most commonly used social media platforms among Chinese users, Sina Weibo (Weibo hereafter) has a large user base with a large amount of user-generated content. The content on Weibo is mostly the self-expression of users, with pictures and text as the main focus, and the text content is limited to 140 Chinese characters, fostering an open content ecosystem. This study investigates ambiguous NSSI-related terms on Weibo. To our knowledge, this is the first published study to explore NSSI-related terms on a Chinese-language social network. The purposes of the current study are (1) to explore the meaning and consistency of ambiguous language use; (2) to explore the general social opinions towards NSSI …