Educational stakeholders’ attitudes and knowledge about nonsuicidal self-injury among university students: A cross-national study

Abstract

Objective:

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a commonly occurring, yet historically poorly understood, mental health concern among post-secondary students. The present study sought to identify the current knowledge needs of university stakeholders to inform training efforts around effective NSSI response and student support on university campuses.

Participants:

Participants were 1,762 university students, staff, and student-staff (77% female) from seven universities in Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and Australia.

Methods:

Participants completed an online survey about their attitudes and knowledge of both general mental health and NSSI.

Results:

University stakeholders reported significantly greater stigma toward NSSI than mental illness in general. Student-staff reported greater perceived knowledge and comfort, and demonstrated greater knowledge of NSSI, than students and staff.

Conclusions:

Findings underscore the need for additional training and resources to reduce stigma and increase knowledge about NSSI on university campuses internationally.

Keywords:

• Knowledge
• nonsuicidal self-injury
• post-secondary school
• stigma
• students

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the country of each participating site and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of each University.

Notes

1 It is important to note that in a secondary MANCOVA analysis, significant differences among stakeholders did not change taking into account participants’ lived experience with NSSI.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.