Off track or on? Associations of positive and negative life events with the continuation versus cessation of repetitive adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury

Objective: This study examined how patterns of repetitive (≥5 instances) nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) associate with measures of resilience and life events retrospectively reported to have occurred within the last year, 1 to <5 years ago, and 5 to <10 years ago. 

Method: Life events reported by 557 young adults (mean [SD] age 25.3 [0.68]; 59.2% women) were classified as positive, negative, or profoundly negative based on their relationship to participants' mental health and well-being. We subsequently examined how these categories, together with resilience, were cross-sectionally associated with reporting no NSSI, and the (full/partial) cessation/continuation of repetitive NSSI from adolescence to young adulthood. 

Results: Repetitive NSSI in adolescence was associated with (profoundly) negative life events. Relative to cessation, NSSI continuation was significantly associated with more kinds of negative life events (odds ratio [OR] = 1.79) and fewer kinds of positive life events 1 to <5 years ago (OR = 0.65) and tended to be associated with lower resilience (b = −0.63, p = 0.056). Neither life events nor resilience significantly differentiated individuals reporting full or partial cessation. 

Conclusion: Resilience appears important for the cessation of repetitive NSSI, but contextual factors must still be considered. Assessing positive life events in future studies holds promise.