title: Exposure to websites that encourage self-harm and suicide: prevalence rates and association with actual thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide in the United States.
abstract: This article provides 12-month prevalence rates of youth exposure to websites which encourage self-harm or suicide and examines whether such exposure is related to thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide in the past 30 days. Data were collected via telephone from a nationally representative survey of 1560 Internet-using youth, ages 10-17 residing in the United States. One percent (95% CI: 0.5%, 1.5%) of youth reported visiting a website that encouraged self-harm or suicide. Youth who visited such websites were seven times more likely to say they had thought about killing themselves; and 11 times more likely to think about hurting themselves, even after adjusting for several known risk factors for thoughts of self-harm and thoughts of suicide. Given that youth thinking about self-harm and suicide are more likely to visit these sites, they may represent an opportunity for identification of youth in need of crisis intervention.
authors.affiliation: University of New Hampshire, USA. Electronic address: Kimberly.Mitchell@unh.edu.
authors.forename: Kimberly J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: University of New Hampshire, USA.
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.affiliation: Lund University, Sweden.
authors.forename: Gisela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Priebe
authors.affiliation: Center for Innovative Public Health Research, USA.
authors.forename: Michele L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Ybarra
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D059020:Suicidal Ideation; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Internet; Prevalence; Self-harm; Self-injury; Suicidal ideation; Youth