Self-Injury and Associated Behaviors Among College Students

Background: Suicide is the third leading cause of death among college students. The interpersonal theory of suicide may provide a way to conceptualize suicide risk in this population. Aims: We sought to examine relations between illegal behaviors that may act as risk factors for suicide and the acquired capability for suicide. Method: College students (N = 758) completed assessments of acquired capability and previous exposure to painful and provocative events, including illegal risk behaviors (IRBs). Linear regression, a nonparametric bootstrapping procedure, and two-tailed partial correlations were employed to test our hypotheses. Results: There was no significant relation between IRBs and acquired capability after controlling for legal painful and provocative experiences. A significant positive relation was identified between IRBs and fear/anxiety, contradicting the expected relation between increased painful and provocative experiences and lower fear/anxiety. Acquired capability explained variance in the relation between IRBs and history of suicide attempt or self-injury history. Conclusion: Further research is needed to examine links between IRBs and painful and provocative events, particularly to identify the point at which habituation begins to increase acquired capability, as our unexpected results may be due to a lack of habituation to risky behaviors or low variability of scores in the sample.

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Personal and Interpersonal Predictors of Self-Injury Among College Students

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e618222010-001 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Kimberly D. Harrison ◽

Steven A. Meyers

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Self Injury

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Patterns of reinforcement sensitivity for non-suicidal self-injury in college students

Acta Psychologica Sinica ◽

10.3724/sp.j.1041.2016.00258 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 48 (3) ◽

pp. 258

Author(s):

Mengting YING ◽

Guangrong JIANG ◽

Lixia YU ◽

Ting LU

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Self Injury ◽

Reinforcement Sensitivity

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Prevalence and demographic, substance use, and mental health correlates of fasting among U.S. college students

Journal of Eating Disorders ◽

10.1186/s40337-021-00443-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Kyle T. Ganson ◽

Rachel F. Rodgers ◽

Stuart B. Murray ◽

Jason M. Nagata

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

College Students ◽

Substance Use ◽

Eating Disorder ◽

Suicidal Ideation ◽

Drug Use ◽

Illicit Drug ◽

Men And Women ◽

The Past ◽

Self Injury

Abstract Background Fasting is an unhealthy behavior that has been frequently used as part of weight loss attempts. To date, little research has been conducted to determine the prevalence and substance use and mental health correlates of fasting among college students. Therefore, the aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence and associations between any (≥ 1 time) and regular (≥ 13 times) occurrences of fasting in the past 4 weeks and substance use and mental health correlates among a large sample of college students from 2016 to 2020. Methods Data from four academic survey years (2016–2020; N = 8255) of the national (USA) Healthy Minds Study were analyzed. Unadjusted prevalence of any and regular fasting by survey year and gender was estimated. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to estimate the associations between any and regular fasting and the demographic (age, body mass index, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, highest parental education), substance use (cigarette use, marijuana use, other illicit drug use, alcohol use), and mental health (depression, anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, suicidal ideation, non-suicidal self-injury) correlates. Results Any fasting in the past 4 weeks was common among both men (14.77%) and women (18.12%) and significantly increased from 2016 (10.30%) to 2020 (19.81%) only among men. Regular fasting significantly increased among both men and women from 2016 (men: 1.46%; women: 1.79%) to 2020 (men: 3.53%; women: 6.19%). Among men and women, both any and regular fasting in the past 4 weeks were associated with higher odds of all mental health symptoms, including a positive depression, anxiety, and eating disorder screen, suicidal ideation, and non-suicidal self-injury. Among women, but not men, any and regular fasting in the past 4 weeks were associated with higher odds of marijuana use and other illicit drug use (e.g., cocaine, ecstasy). Conclusions The results from this study underscore both the high and increasing prevalence of fasting among a national sample of college students, as well as the substance use and mental health symptoms associated with this behavior. Healthcare professionals both on and off campus should consider screening for fasting behaviors among college students and provide appropriate intervention when needed.

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