title: The influence of personality traits and emotional and behavioral problems on repetitive nonsuicidal self-injury in a school sample.
abstract: Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is highly prevalent among adolescents and associated with various mental health problems and suicidality. Previous studies have found that certain personality traits are related to NSSI behavior, however only few studies examined personality traits in adolescents with NSSI. Our study aimed to assess the relationship between personality traits and emotional and behavioral problems in predicting repetitive NSSI among adolescents from a school sample.
  
  
  
  Four hundred and forty-seven students (M=14.95years, SD=0.74, 52% male) completed self-report measures on NSSI, personality traits, and emotional and behavioral problems.
  
  
  
  The past year prevalence of occasional and repetitive NSSI was 4.9% and 6.3% respectively. Repetitive NSSI was significantly associated with female gender, higher levels of age, novelty seeking, harm avoidance, self-transcendence, antisocial behavior, and positive self and lower levels of persistence and self-directedness in univariate analyses. However, multivariate logistic regression analyses indicated that only high levels of antisocial behavior and low levels of self-directedness significantly predicted repetitive NSSI.
  
  
  
  The association between a lack of self-directedness and NSSI emphasizes the significance of targeting self-directedness in psychotherapy by strengthening self-awareness, affect tolerance and emotion regulation, as well as establishing and pursuing long-term goals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Basel, Psychiatric University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. Electronic address: Janine.Luedtke@upkbs.ch.
authors.forename: Janine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lüdtke
authors.affiliation: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatry Baselland, Liestal, Switzerland. Electronic address: Benedict.Weizenegger@pbl.ch.
authors.forename: Benedict
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Weizenegger
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: Rachel.Rauber@gmx.ch.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rauber
authors.affiliation: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatry Baselland, Liestal, Switzerland. Electronic address: Brigitte.Contin@pbl.ch.
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Contin
authors.affiliation: Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany. Electronic address: in-albon@uni-landau.de.
authors.forename: Tina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: In-Albon
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Basel, Psychiatric University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. Electronic address: Marc.Schmid@upkbs.ch.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schmid
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D000066553:Problem Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D012574:Schools; D057566:Self Report; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology