Behavioral contagion reconsidered: self-harm among adolescent psychiatric inpatients: a five-year study.

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the occurrence of behavioral contagion among inpatient adolescent psychiatric patients in terms of past self-harm related behaviors. Our goal was to isolate persistent self-harm behavior from self-harm behavior that could be considered truly contagious.

Method: We employed 5 years retrospective cohort study design in order to compare the occurrence of self-harm as inpatients among those with and without histories of self-harm behavior.

Results: Our results indicate that the spontaneous occurrence of self-harm among inpatients without a history of self-harm is very low. While there appears to be a group that exhibits self-harm as inpatients, the tendency in this group is more towards a reduction of the intensity or a cessation of self-harming behavior.

Conclusions: Contagious self-harm does not appear to be a problem among inpatients with long stays on psychiatric treatment units. The overall tendency among inpatient adolescent psychiatric patients, especially those among those with histories of self-harm behavior is away from self-harming behavior.