Cumulative Risk for Deliberate Self-Harm Among Treatment-Seeking Women With Histories of Childhood Abuse

This study examined internal risk factors associated with deliberate self-harm (DSH) in a sample of treatment-seeking women with histories of childhood abuse, using a cumulative risk approach. Sixty-seven women with histories of DSH were compared with a group of one-hundred women with no history of DSH on measures of adult attachment, emotion regulation, alexithymia, dissociation, self-soothing abilities, and frequency of previous suicide attempts. Bivariate analyses revealed that women in the DSH group presented with significantly higher levels of emotion dysregulation, alexithymia, dissociation, and a higher frequency of previous suicide attempts than woman in the non-DSH group. Logistic regression analyses revealed that a cumulative risk index (CRI) comprised of these six internal risk factors reliably distinguished between women with and without a history of DSH. Risk for DSH was found to increase with each risk factor that was added to the CRI model. Women endorsing five or more risk factors were 37 times more likely to be in the DSH group. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.