Self-harm by women and girls has risen by 50% in ten years

There has been a 50 percent increase in the number of emergency room admissions concerning girls and women with self-inflicted injuries, according to the Volkskrant. The patients range in age from 10 to 30 years old, were assessed as having either attempted suicide, or seriously and intentionally causing injury to themselves.

There were 4,000 such cases involving young women and adolescent girls in 2013. That jumped to 6,000 in 2022, according to research by VeiligheidNL commissioned by 113 Zelfmoordpreventie. Emergency physician leader David Baden estimated that 75 percent of cases are actual suicide attempts, while 25 percent may be intended to reach out for help. There was not a similar increase among male patients, the newspaper noted.

A separate study from Utrecht University and the Trimbos Instituut found that 47 percent of girls between 12 and 16 years of age are often worried, anxious or unhappy. That frequent sense of concern or despair affected 14 percent of boys, by comparison. The survey of 4,800 school children was conducted in 2022. Five years earlier, the rate among girls was 29 percent.

Adolescent girls and young women are most likely to wind up in an emergency room due to self-harm. About 2,800 such cases required hospitalization after emergency room treatment in 2022 alone.

"The alarm bells are saying that some young people are doing so badly that they are taking action," said Arne Popma in an interview with the Volkskrant. "Unfortunately, the figures fit a trend," the professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Amsterdam University Medical Center told the newspaper.

There has also been a disturbing rise in deliberate overdoses among 13 to 17 year olds. The percentage of cases involving girls is 84 percent, according to data from poison research center NVIC. These are sometimes suicide attempts, and sometimes cries for help.

The age in which girls show self-harm behavior is also getting younger, said Vrije Universiteit Brussel researcher Imke Baetens. "It used to be around 14 years old, but now we increasingly see teenagers aged 11, 12 or 13." She added, "Our hypothesis is that it is linked to the fact that young people are starting to use social media earlier and earlier."

A report released late last year also found that middle-aged men are at greatest risk of actually ending their life, according to the operators of suicide prevention hotline 113. Even though women and girls are more likely to suffer from depression and similar symptoms, men are more likely to use violent means when taking their own life, said Saskia Mérelle from 113 Zelfmoordpreventie.