Objectives
This study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on presentations to an acute hospital with self-harm.
Methods
All presentations to University Hospital Galway with self-harm were assessed during the peak period of the coronavirus crisis in Ireland, over the three months from 1st March to 31st May 2020. These data were compared with presentations in the same months in the three years preceding (2017-2019). Data were obtained from the anonymised service database.
Results
This study found that in 2020, the rate of presentation with self-harm dropped by 35% from March to April and rose by 104% from April to May, peaking from mid-May. When trends over a four-year period were examined, there was a significantly higher lethality of attempt (p<0.001), and significant differences in diagnosis (p=0.031) in 2020 in comparison with the three previous years. The increased lethality of presentations remained significant after age and gender were controlled for (p=0.036). There were also significant differences in the underlying psychiatric diagnoses(p=0.018), notably with a significant increase in substance misuse disorders presenting during the 2020 study period.
Conclusions
COVID-19 showed a reduction in self-harm presentations initially, followed by a sharp increase in May 2020. If a period of economic instability follows as predicted, it is likely that this will further impact the mental health of the population, along with rates of self-harm and suicidal behaviours. There is a need for research into the longer-term effect of the restrictions and changes due to Covid-19, especially with respect to self-harm.
Employing a framework of commercial nationalism, this article analyses how a post-Celtic Tiger Irish government aligned with elite interests has doubled down on its commitment to corporate citizenship. Despite the depredations of this era being directly attributable to the irrational exuberance of the Celtic Tiger period and lapses in financial regulation, Ireland post-2008 is marked by a radical forgetfulness and defined by ‘Shock Doctrine’ regulatory policies that have installed corporatism at the heart of everyday life. Key features of this landscape include ongoing governmental facilitation of tax avoidance by multinational corporations, the hollowing out of public services, the normalization of under-employment and a burgeoning housing crisis. We show here how the popular images and narratives of the period index a shift toward corporate impregnability and a public culture in which individuals absorb greater risk and take up positions of heightened precarity.
This article examines how pre-existing Irish migratory cultural logics have been re-tooled in the post-Celtic Tiger period as a form of adaptation to the new imperatives of global capitalism. In this analysis, we show that just as Julien Mercille has discovered in regard to the Irish press and its role in normalizing and promoting neoliberal responses to the economic crisis, representations of the new emigration in the Irish broadcasting environment traverse a narrow spectrum that runs from optimism to resignation. Reality genres heavily tout the values of enterprise and resilience as well as the material affordances that are seen to accrue from emigration, while dramas are more customarily committed to the emotional management of experiences of loss and separation. Structural inquiry into national economic programmes and priorities is customarily excluded in such an environment, although it may be seen that more vernacular forms such as YouTube videos and a low-level but consistent preoccupation with the experiences and concerns of the returned migrant in the Irish press suggest public interest in unsettled questions about the permeability of Irish society and what it means to be located within or dislocated from it.
It has been argued that cuteness is emerging as one of the dominant aesthetic categories of the twenty-first century. In this essay, I analyze the star text of actress and singer Zooey Deschanel to trace the impact of cuteness on the political energies of “Millenials,” the generational cohort arguably most affected by the deleterious aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis. Deschanel is a particularly multi-mediated celebrity with an extensive presence in new media, a hit sitcom, and a number of commercial endorsements. I analyze how cuteness facilitates Deschanel’s appeal to both mainstream and alternative modalities, and trace the affective power of a cute aesthetic to harness commercial imperatives and aid in the creation of a juxtapolitical intimate public that utilizes a “restorative nostalgia” to neutralize political energies amid straitened economic and social conditions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.