A WORRYING TREND of increased self-harm among young boys has emerged as part of new figures on suicide prevention.
The 2014 report from the National Self-Harm Registry has found that hundreds of children between the ages of 10 and 14 required hospital treatment over self-inflicted injuries.
The rate of self-harm for boys in this age category increased by 44%, up to 49 per 100,000.
The rate of self-harm in other groups remained broadly the same.
Last year, 78 boys and 244 girls aged between 10 and 14 attended hospital after self-harm incidents.
The report states that this is particularly worrying as methods of self-harm used by males have a higher lethality.
Self-harm in Ireland
The group most at risk of self-harming were females in the 15 to 19 age range, with an incidence rate 678 per 100,000.
Geographically there was also a lot of variance in the incident rate.
The male rate for self-harm in Co Clare stands at 127 per 100,000, with this rising to 394 per 100,000 for Cork City.
The most common form of self-harm is intentional overdoses, which accounted for two-thirds of all acts registered in 2014.
Despite this there was a slight decrease in the number of self-harm presentations involving drug overdoses.
Total incidences
Last year there were 11,126 presentations to Irish hospitals involving 8,708 individuals relating to self-harm.
The incidence rate was 200 per 100,000, something that remained basically unchanged from 2013.
The national male rate of self-harm stood at 185 per 100,000 while the female rate stood at 216 per 100,000.
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