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Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Among Youth in an Underserved Area of the Southern United States: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Gender, Racial/Ethnic Background, and School-Level

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Abstract

Despite the clinical relevance of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB) among youth, little is known about the subset of youth most at-risk for SITB. This study examined the moderating roles of gender, racial/ethnic background, and school-level (and their interactions) on rates of SITB within a large (N = 2638, 52.2% female), ethnically-diverse sample of middle- and high-school youth in a relatively poor and underserved area of the Southern United States. Extending extant research in this area, findings indicated a significant interaction between gender and race for self-injurious behaviors, with African–American boys reporting higher rates than all other groups. Findings also indicated significant interactions between school-level and both gender and race for self-injurious thoughts. Whereas comparable levels of self-injurious thoughts were reported across middle- and high-schools for girls and African–American youth, the frequency of these thoughts was higher among both boys and White students in high-school (vs. middle-school). Results highlight the need for further research on SITB among diverse youth in underserved areas.

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Notes

  1. Given the possibility that children within the same community may be more similar than children from different communities (thereby yielding non-independent observations), multilevel modeling (Raudenbush and Bryk 2002) was used to determine whether analyses needed to account for the nesting of these data. For each of the three dependent variables, a model with no predictors was run to assess whether any variance in the dependent variable was accounted for by the grouping of children within districts. Intraclass correlation coefficients suggested that less than 3% of the variance in each dependent variable was accounted for by school district. Thus, observations can be considered independent and analyses proceeded in a non-nested format.

  2. Of note, all findings remained the same when accounting for the percentage of students within each school living below or within the poverty marker.

  3. All results remained the same when SIB items were examined continuously.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State St., Jackson, MS, 39216, USA

    Robert D. Latzman & Kim L. Gratz

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Mississippi, University, MS, USA

    John Young

  3. Mississippi Children’s Home Services—CARES School, Jackson, MS, USA

    Laurie J. Heiden, John D. Damon & Terry L. Hight

Authors
  1. Robert D. Latzman
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  2. Kim L. Gratz
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  3. John Young
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  4. Laurie J. Heiden
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  5. John D. Damon
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  6. Terry L. Hight
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Correspondence to Robert D. Latzman.

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Latzman, R.D., Gratz, K.L., Young, J. et al. Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Among Youth in an Underserved Area of the Southern United States: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Gender, Racial/Ethnic Background, and School-Level. J Youth Adolescence 39, 270–280 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9462-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9462-4

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