ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Mood Disorders
Sex differences in the prevalence and risk factors of non-suicidal self-injury behaviors among adolescent outpatients with major depressive disorder
Provisionally accepted
- Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, Peking University, Beijing, China
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Objective: Although non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) behaviors are particularly prevalent among adolescent outpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD), few studies have investigated the sex differences in this population. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate sex differences in the prevalence and risk factors of NSSI among adolescent outpatients with MDD. Methods: In total, 284 adolescent outpatients who met the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for MDD were recruited for this cross-sectional study. A self-designed questionnaire, the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), Chinese version of the Functional Assessment of Self-Mutilation (CFASM), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist (ASLEC) were employed to assess participants' socio demographic factors, depressive symptoms, NSSI behaviors, sleep quality, and stressful life events, respectively. Results: The prevalence of NSSI behaviors was significantly higher in female adolescents than in male adolescents. Notably, female adolescents demonstrated significantly higher NSSI functioning scores, NSSI frequency, and CDI scores than male adolescents. Regression analysis showed that among female adolescents, higher PSQI and ASLEC scores were identified as significant risk factors for NSSI behaviors, with the frequency of NSSI positively correlated with ASLEC scores. However, these associations were not observed in males. Conclusion: NSSI is more prevalent in female adolescent outpatients with MDD than male outpatients with MDD. Further, there are significant sex differences in the risk factors associated with NSSI, suggesting that sex differences should be considered when developing prevention and intervention strategies for coexisting NSSI behaviors among adolescent outpatients with MDD.
Keywords: adolescents, Major Depressive Disorder, Non-suicidal self-injury, sexdifferences, Risk factors
Received: 25 Mar 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lv, Ma, Qi and An. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Huimei An, anhuimei_teacher@163.com
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