respond paper

Thor Coleman

Dr. Custer

Sociology 101

7/22/2018

Nonsuicidal self-injury (or NSSI for short) has become increasingly more prevalent in today's society among adolescents. Nonsuicidal self-injury is the intentional cause of harm to oneself without the intention of causing death. Studies on the frequency of NSSI have been conducted in other developed nations and the majority of them have been clinical studies. Before this study, many of the data points surrounding NSSI and its recurrence within the United States has been unclear. The purpose of this study was to provide larger, representative, nonclinical samples of NSSI in populations of high school students across the United States as well as look for differing data between genders. The study also attempted to find correlations between other health risk behaviors such as drug abuse and NSSI.

Much of the previous literature has described nonsuicidal self-injury as on the rise, but these claims have “tended to rely on data collected before 2012” (Monto, McRee, Deryck, 2015). Most of the past research has also been clinical research as well as using convenience sampling. This means the sampling of the participants of past experiments was possibly much more biased and data points could have been negatively impacted. The current study wanted to build off of the past literature and move towards a larger more representative sample of NSSI prevalence among high school age students.

The researchers did not clearly state one way or another what their hypothesis might be. However there are independent and dependent variables in this experiment. Multiple variables were tested in this experiment, so there is not just one independent variable. Examples of possible independent variables are drug abuse, sexual abuse as well as depression or attempted suicide. The dependent variable however is always going to be frequency of NSSI. A possible hypothesis that one could make is that as someone who has more suicidal thoughts than someone else will more often experience NSSI symptoms. Many different variables were tested against the prevalence on NSSI as the survey that was given to participants included many different questions to quantify youth behavior.

The questionnaire that was given to participants is titled the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) and was created by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. A question was specifically added to this test to measure rates of NSSI in a population. The question asked was ““during the past 12 months, how many times did you do something to purposely hurt yourself without wanting to die, such as cutting or burning yourself on purpose?” (Monto, McRee, Deryck, 2015). This is a survey which utilizes quantitative methods and multiple choice questions to measure youth risk behavior. Some of the perks of this methodology include being able to study basic traits of large groups with relative ease and can study observable traits easier. However, some of the weaknesses of this process include the fact that the questions are all standardized, the answers are all self reported and question wording can be confusing at times.

This study utilized convenience sampling as the survey containing the researchers extra question was given to students in classes from 11 different states. Some of the perks for using this method include its ease of use factor as well as being convenient, as stated in the name. One of the major cons however include its large possibilities for bias.

This study procured many interesting findings. First of all, there were 64,671 respondents to their survey. 32,150 of those respondents were male while 32,521 were female. A little over 52 percent of the total respondents identified themselves as white or caucasian. When it came to frequency of NSSI within the population, “17.59% of respondents reported at least 1 non suicidal self-injurious act during the previous 12 months” (Monto, McRee, Deryck, 2015). Female adolescents were reported twice as likely to take part in self-injurious acts than their male counterparts (23.8% for female and 11.3% for male). The study also noted that NSSI frequency seemingly declined as age increased. Rates of NSSI fluctuated from 19.4% from 14 year old respondents to 14.7% for 18 year old respondents. The research provides “ convincing evidence that NSSI is relatively common among American adolescents and may be carried out by more than 1 in 10 high-school–aged boys and about 1 in 4 high-school–aged girls in a given year” (Monto, McRee, Deryck, 2015).

There were a few limitations discussed near the end of the study by the authors. First and foremost, the questions do not measure severity of individuals NSSI experiences, only measured if they occurred. The YRBSS also does not ask about other possible factors that could be correlated with NSSI including familial dynamics. The data in this study is also described by the authors as cross sectional, meaning they can help indicate correlation but not causation between NSSI and other health risk behaviors.

References:

Custer, L. (2018). Research Process [PowerPoint slides].

Retrieved from https://cascadia.instructure.com/courses/1628362/files/100546513?module_item_id=29316694

Monto, M. A., McRee, N., & Deryck, F. S. (2018). Nonsuicidal self-injury among a representative sample of US adolescents, 2015.

American Journal of Public Health, 108(8), 1042-1048. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304470