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The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents

Although the suicidal and self-harming behaviour of individuals is often associated with similar behaviours in people they know, little is known about the impact of perceived social norms on those behaviours. In a range of other behavioural domains (e.g., alcohol consumption, smoking, eating behavio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Quigley, Jody, Rasmussen, Susan, McAlaney, John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5369143/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28294999
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14030307
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author Quigley, Jody
Rasmussen, Susan
McAlaney, John
author_facet Quigley, Jody
Rasmussen, Susan
McAlaney, John
author_sort Quigley, Jody
collection PubMed
description Although the suicidal and self-harming behaviour of individuals is often associated with similar behaviours in people they know, little is known about the impact of perceived social norms on those behaviours. In a range of other behavioural domains (e.g., alcohol consumption, smoking, eating behaviours) perceived social norms have been found to strongly predict individuals’ engagement in those behaviours, although discrepancies often exist between perceived and reported norms. Interventions which align perceived norms more closely with reported norms have been effective in reducing damaging behaviours. The current study aimed to explore whether the Social Norms Approach is applicable to suicidal and self-harming behaviours in adolescents. Participants were 456 pupils from five Scottish high-schools (53% female, mean age = 14.98 years), who completed anonymous, cross-sectional surveys examining reported and perceived norms around suicidal and self-harming behaviour. Friedman’s ANOVA with post-hoc Wilcoxen signed-ranks tests indicated that proximal groups were perceived as less likely to engage in or be permissive of suicidal and self-harming behaviours than participants’ reported themselves, whilst distal groups tended towards being perceived as more likely to do so. Binary logistic regression analyses identified a number of perceived norms associated with reported norms, with close friends’ norms positively associated with all outcome variables. The Social Norms Approach may be applicable to suicidal and self-harming behaviour, but associations between perceived and reported norms and predictors of reported norms differ to those found in other behavioural domains. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are considered.
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spelling pubmed-53691432017-04-05 The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents Quigley, Jody Rasmussen, Susan McAlaney, John Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Although the suicidal and self-harming behaviour of individuals is often associated with similar behaviours in people they know, little is known about the impact of perceived social norms on those behaviours. In a range of other behavioural domains (e.g., alcohol consumption, smoking, eating behaviours) perceived social norms have been found to strongly predict individuals’ engagement in those behaviours, although discrepancies often exist between perceived and reported norms. Interventions which align perceived norms more closely with reported norms have been effective in reducing damaging behaviours. The current study aimed to explore whether the Social Norms Approach is applicable to suicidal and self-harming behaviours in adolescents. Participants were 456 pupils from five Scottish high-schools (53% female, mean age = 14.98 years), who completed anonymous, cross-sectional surveys examining reported and perceived norms around suicidal and self-harming behaviour. Friedman’s ANOVA with post-hoc Wilcoxen signed-ranks tests indicated that proximal groups were perceived as less likely to engage in or be permissive of suicidal and self-harming behaviours than participants’ reported themselves, whilst distal groups tended towards being perceived as more likely to do so. Binary logistic regression analyses identified a number of perceived norms associated with reported norms, with close friends’ norms positively associated with all outcome variables. The Social Norms Approach may be applicable to suicidal and self-harming behaviour, but associations between perceived and reported norms and predictors of reported norms differ to those found in other behavioural domains. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are considered. MDPI 2017-03-15 2017-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5369143/ /pubmed/28294999 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14030307 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Quigley, Jody
Rasmussen, Susan
McAlaney, John
The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents
title The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents
title_full The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents
title_fullStr The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents
title_full_unstemmed The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents
title_short The Social Norms of Suicidal and Self-Harming Behaviours in Scottish Adolescents
title_sort social norms of suicidal and self-harming behaviours in scottish adolescents
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5369143/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28294999
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14030307
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