Background: The relationships between religiosity/spirituality (RS) and self-harm behavior, including non-suicidal self-harm behavior (NS-SHB) and suicide attempts/completions, remain of keen interest. Whereas the majority of studies strongly suggest that RS protects against suicide attempts/completions, relationships between RS and NS-SHB have been rarely studied.
Aim: In this study, we examined RS in relationship to both NS-SHB (six explicit behaviors) and past history of suicide attempts.
Method: In a cross-sectional sample of 306 consecutive primary care outpatients, we administered four self-report assessments for RS (extent participant considered self a religious person, extent participant considered self a spiritual person, extent religion is involved in understanding/dealing with stressful situations, Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being Scale (FACIT-Sp-12)) as well as examined seven items on the Self-Harm Inventory: six items reflecting NS-SHB and one item reflecting a past suicide attempt.
Results: While two RS items yielded no significant findings (extent participant considered self a spiritual person, extent religion is involved in understanding/dealing with stressful situations), the remaining two items were associated with a lowered risk of self-harm behavior, particularly the FACIT-Sp-12.
Conclusions: Some but not all aspects of RS are associated with lowered risk for self-harm. In this study, considering oneself a religious person and reporting a general sense of RS well-being offered the most protective effect to participants, particularly the latter.
Keywords: Religion; Self-Harm Inventory; self-harm; spirituality; suicide; suicide attempts.
© The Author(s) 2015.