Self-Harm, Affective Traits, and Psychosocial Functioning in Adults With Depressive and Bipolar Disorders

Abstract

Self-harm refers to the purposeful destruction of bodily tissue without suicidal intention and for purposes that are not socially sanctioned. Little is known about the associations between a history of self-harm, mood symptoms, and functioning in adults with different types of mood disorders. Lifetime histories of self-harm, current mood symptoms, global functioning, and affective traits were collected on 142 adults with mood disorders. The prevalence of lifetime self-harm was higher in patients with bipolar disorder compared to patients with a unipolar depressive disorder. Self-harm was also more strongly linked to impulsivity in individuals with bipolar disorder compared to unipolar depressive disorder. Across both diagnoses, histories of self-harm were related to lower levels of current global functioning, more severe depressive symptoms, and high self-reported emotional dysregulation and neuroticism. Findings indicate that self-harm is a potent prognostic variable for symptoms, global functioning, and personality functioning in individuals with mood disorders.

The Prevalence of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Its Risk Factors Among Patients with Depression or Bipolar Disorder in China

“…In the present study, our results of prevalence of NSSI was 62.2%, which was slightly lower than the prevalence of NSSI (77%) in a Canadian study among clinical populations (Preyde et al, 2014). Equally, Weintraub et al(Weintraub et al, 2017) found that about 37% of patients with depression and 52% of patients with bipolar disorder had at least one NSSI, which was also higher than the results of this study (34.3% and 27.9%, respectively). The discrepancies in estimates of the prevalence of NSSI may be relate to different sample sources and numbers, various assessment tools, wording of instructions, time frame for raising questions and data collection procedures.…”

“…As a coping strategy for maladaptive individuals (Guerreiro et al, 2013), NSSI are more prone to be seen in clinical populations, especially in patients with depression or bipolar disorder who have poor ability of emotional regulation and coping (Kim et al, 2015). A recent study (Weintraub et al, 2017) observed that about 52% and 37% of patients with bipolar disorder and depression had NSSI at least once, respectively. Chinese researcher also found that 59 out of 153 Chinese patients with depression (38.6%) had committed NSSI in the past year (Fang and Li, 2019).…”

“…Whereas studies from other countries have investigated the prevalence of NSSI and risk factors of NSSI (Swannell et al, 2016;Sera ni et al, 2017;Calhoun et al, 2017), including the exploration of patients with depression or bipolar disorder (Baiden et al, 2017a;Weintraub et al, 2017). So far, few studies within the Chinese context have investigated the prevalence of NSSI and the risk factors for NSSI among patients with depression or bipolar disorder.…”

“…Tschan found that NSSI was associated with the educational level of parents (Tschan et al, 2015a). Besides, there may also be a link between impulsivity and NSSI (Weintraub et al, 2017), which may be more pronounced in individuals with depression or bipolar disorder than in the general population (Lombardo et al, 2012). To date, the existing literature is inconsistent with regard to whether the incidence of NSSI is related to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).…”

Suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious behaviour in patients with bipolar disorder and comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder after initiation of central stimulant treatment: a mirror-image study based on the LiSIE retrospective cohort

“… 61 These factors have also been observed in patients with BD. Impaired executive function, particularly impaired decision making and impulsivity, 62 – 66 has been linked to an increased risk of suicidal and NSSI behaviour. Similar observations have been made in patients with ADHD.…”