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		</div><p>People hospitalised by self-harm are at higher risk of suicide but less than half receive a mental health assessment afterward, a new study has revealed.</p>
<p>More than 84,000 cases over 12 years were looked at by the Multicentre Study of Self-harm in England, which found a “psychosocial assessment” by specialist staff occurred in 53.2% of them.</p>
<p>Guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2004 say assessments should be given in all cases.</p>
<p>Writing in the online journal BMJ Open, the team led by Professor Keith Hawton from the University of Oxford said people who “self-injured” were less likely, compared to those “self-poisoning” by taking overdoses, to receive a mental health assessment.</p>
<p>They wrote: “Our finding that only a little over half of individuals presenting to hospital after self-harm were offered psychosocial assessment and that individuals who self-injured were least likely to receive an assessment, coupled with the rise in self-injury as a method of self-harm and the link between such methods and suicide, may have important implications for the management of self-harm in hospitals.</p>
<p>“These include efforts to increase the overall rate of psychosocial assessment of patients who self-harm and, especially, to ensure that more of those who present with self-injury receive an assessment than appears to be current practice.”</p>
<p>The paper also noted that while the “vast majority” of cases involved poisoning, “there is a stronger risk of suicide following self-cutting compared to self-poisoning”.</p>
<p>The study, which involved Oxford, the University of Manchester and Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, looked at 84,378 episodes of self-harm involving 47,048 people at five hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby between 2000 and 2012.</p>
<p>Their definition of self-harm included “intentional injury and overdosing on prescription drugs”.</p>
<p>It found that almost four out of 10 people (38%) were under 25, and nearly two thirds (62%) were under 35. Almost a third (30%) of the total patients were receiving some form of psychiatric care when they self-harmed.</p>
<p>Almost three quarters (74.6%) of self-harm admission to hospital were caused by an intentional overdose alone.</p>
<p>The researchers also found an increase in cases involving cutting and hanging or strangulation in the second half of the study period.</p>
<p>It concluded: “Trends in rates of self-harm and suicide may be closely related; therefore, self-harm can be a useful mental health indicator. Despite national guidance, many patients still do not receive psychosocial assessment, especially those who self-injure.”</p>
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