The Role of Stressful life Events and Emotion Regulation in Self-Harm.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Role of Stressful life Events and Emotion Regulation in Self-Harm.
IRAS ID
222962
Contact name
Danielle Hitchens
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Wolverhampton.
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 1 days
Research summary
According to Caroll, Metcalfe and Gunnell (2014) “one in 25 patients presenting to hospital for self-harm will kill themselves in the next 5 years”. Such research highlights the importance of investigating the underlying mechanisms that contribute to self harm. Literature suggests that there are several risk factors that appear to predict self-harming behaviours, such as verbal bullying (Mossige, Huang, Straiton & Roen, 2016), emotion (Mikolajczak, Pedrides & hurry, 2009) and emotional abuse (Goldstein et al., 2009). Research also demonstrates that there are several demographics that are associated with self-harm. Women are twice more likely to self-harm than men (Madge, et al., 2008), along with lesbian, gay and bisexual people at a higher risk of self harm than heterosexual individuals (king et al., 2008). Similarly, research suggests that are significant differences in the rates of self-harm between ethnic groups (Al-sharifi, Krynicki, & Upthegrove, 2017).
In order to understand why individuals, engage in self-harming behaviours, Nock (2010) developed a theoretical model. The model suggests that some people possess interpersonal vulnerability factors such as emotion dysregulation, that may limit their ability to respond to challenging and stressful events in an adaptive way. Essentially, individuals who posses such vulnerability factors (i.e. difficulty regulating emotions) may use maladaptive coping styles such as self-harm in order to regulate their affective/cognitive or social experience. Nock (2010), further proposes that such vulnerability factors may develop over time as a result of environmental factors i.e. stressors. The aim of the research is to examine the role of stressful life events and emotion regulation in self-harm. The research will contribute to and expand the current literature on self-harm. Such research will not only increase our understanding of the potential mechanisms that underlie self-harm, but also has clinical implications with regards to risk assessment in a therapeutic/clinical setting. Participants will be obtained from a secondary care NHS service that offers mental health services and therapeutic support for individuals in the community. Individuals seeking support from the service will be eligible to take part in the study, that is participants who have or have not engaged in self harm. A quantitative method will be employed using several questionnaires that participants will be required to answer. Data collection should take no longer than 8 months.REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0221
Date of REC Opinion
7 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion