Childhood Separation From Parents and Self-Harm in Adolescence: A Cross-Sectional Study in Mainland China

Abstract

As the prevalence of self-harm among adolescents in Chinese escalates, finding out the potential risk factors associated with self-harm behaviors has aroused much attention. This study aims to explore the association between parent-child separation and series of self-harm (SH) subtypes among Chinese adolescents. We survey a total of 4,928 middle school students aged from 12 to 18 years at school. Parent-child separation was investigated from four dimensions—occurrence of parental separation, separation status, age at first separation and duration of separation. Self-harm series are deemed as five subtypes—highly lethal self-harm, less lethal self-harm with visible tissue damage, self-harm without visible tissue damage, self-harmful behaviors with latent damage and psychological self-harm. Multivariate logistic regression is used to explore the associations between parent-child separation and different subtypes of self-harm among adolescents. Paternal separation is associated with each type of self-harm whilst maternal separation is not correlated with highly lethal self-harm. Except for highly lethal self-harm, the other four subtypes of self-harm demonstrate a relation with both length of paternal separation and maternal separation with aOR ranging from 1.02 to 1.06. Individuals who suffer parental separation prior to the age of three were at a higher risk for four types of less-lethal self-harm. The association of parent-child separation with self-harm deserves our attention, and future research is needed to identify the underlying mechanisms.