Four Distinct Profiles Can ID Risk for Pediatric Self-Harm Events

Very high-risk profile characterized by younger males with mood and developmental disorders

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 1, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Four distinct profiles of psychiatric comorbidities can identify risk for a self-harm event among children, according to a study published online May 1 in Pediatrics.

Mert Sekmen, from the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues examined distinct clinical profiles of risk for self-harm events from 32 covariates: age, sex, and 30 mental health diagnostic groups using data from 1,098 children aged 5 to 18 years hospitalized with a neuropsychiatric event.

The researchers identified four distinct profiles with varying risk for a diagnosis of self-harm. Children aged 5 to 9 years without a previous psychiatric diagnosis comprised the low-risk profile (median risk, 0.035; odds ratio, 0.08). Psychiatric diagnoses without depressive disorders represented the moderate-risk profile (median risk, 0.30; reference profile). The high-risk profile included older female adolescents with a combination of anxiety, depression, substance use disorder, and trauma disorders (median risk, 0.69; odds ratio, 5.09). The very-high risk profile was characterized by younger males with mood and developmental disorders (median risk, 0.76; odds ratio, 7.21).

“Our study highlights that a framework using risk profile patterns is better aligned with the real-world complexity and prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in self-harm events compared with traditional risk factor analyses,” the authors write.