Recent studies of homosexual people have found higher rates of nonfatal suicidal behavior than among heterosexuals. The purpose of this study was to determine associations between self-harm and sexual orientation for men and women separately, defining sexual orientation by sexual attraction rather than by behavior.
In a birth cohort of 1,019 New Zealand young adults eligible to be interviewed at age 26 years, 946 participated in assessments of both sexual attraction and self-harm.
Both women and men who had experienced same-sex attraction had higher risks of self-harm. The odds ratios for suicidal ideation in the past year were 3.1 for men and 2.9 for women. Odds ratios for ever having deliberately self-harmed were 5.5 for men and 1.9 for women. Men with same-sex attraction were also significantly more likely to report having attempted suicide. In both sexes, a greater degree of same-sex attraction predicted increasing likelihood of self-harm, with over one-third of men and women with persistent major same-sex attraction reporting this. Men with even a minor degree of same-sex attraction had high rates of self-harm and resulting physical injury. One-quarter of deliberate self-harm among men and one-sixth among women was potentially attributable to same-sex attraction.
This study provides evidence of a link between increasing degrees of same-sex attraction and self-harm in both men and women, with the possibility of some difference between the sexes that needs to be explored further.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 14. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 June 2019.
All research outputs
#3,400,971
of 34,596,607 outputs
Outputs from American Journal of Psychiatry
#2,393
of 9,609 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#6,573
of 90,124 outputs
Outputs of similar age from American Journal of Psychiatry
#20
of 65 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,596,607 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 9,609 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 25.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 90,124 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 65 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its contemporaries.
