Investigações acerca da associação entre a automutilação e ideações suicidas na infância e adolescência

Abstract

Self-inflicted violence is one of several aspects of the vast field of study of violence and that has been increasingly studied by different areas of knowledge, since the number of people who find violence against themselves a way of dealing with suffering comes progressively growing over the last few decades. This type of violence is defined in the light of two subdivisions: suicidal behavior and self-harming behavior. Because they are conceptually very close themes, it is common that they are also related behind the understanding of the respective acts. However, there is still some ambiguity regarding the characterization of the behaviors involved in these classifications. It is also important to point out that self-injurious behavior is constantly characterized as one of the main risk factors for suicidal behavior. In this sense, it is imperative that both behaviors be studied in order to understand the consequences of their correlations in the long term as well. The present study sought to verify the existence of an association between self-mutilation and the development of suicidal ideation, as representatives of the respective groups of self-inflicted violence, in addition to seeking to define the motivations and possible risk factors for triggering self-injury practices in children and adolescents , aiming to contribute to scientific knowledge in the area for the elaboration of interventions and public policies related to the prevention of self-mutilation and suicide. The research was carried out with older participants, of any gender, who had already performed self-mutilation at some point in their lives. The results unanimously indicated that in individuals who presented non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors during childhood or adolescence, suicidal ideation has a higher prevalence level. Based on the data obtained, there were also indicators of the presence of suicidal ideation in a considerable number of children, since most of the participants stated that they had started to engage in self-mutilation behaviors before the age of 14 and that the thoughts suicides also started before the beginning of the practices.