Identifying clinical risk factors correlated with addictive features of non-suicidal self-injury among a consecutive psychiatric outpatient sample of adolescents and young adults

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is an issue primarily of concern in adolescents and young adults. Recent literature suggests that persistent, repetitive, and uncontrollable NSSI can be conceptualized as a behavioral addiction. The study aimed to examine the prevalence of NSSI with addictive features and the association of this prevalence with demographic and clinical variables using a cross-sectional and case–control design. A total of 548 outpatients (12 to 22 years old) meeting the criteria for NSSI disorder of DSM-5 were enrolled and completed clinical interviews by 4 psychiatrists. NSSI with addictive features were determined by using a single-factor structure of addictive features items in the Ottawa self-injury inventory (OSI). Current suicidality, psychiatric diagnosis, the OSI, the revised Chinese Internet Addiction Scale, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale were collected. Binary logistic regression analyses were used to explore associations between risk factors and NSSI with addictive features. This study was conducted from April 2021 to May 2022. The mean age of participants was 15.93 (SD = 2.56) years with 418 females (76.3%), and the prevalence of addictive NSSI was 57.5% (n = 315). Subjects with addictive NSSI had a higher lifetime prevalence of nicotine and alcohol use, a higher prevalence of current internet addiction, suicidality, and alexithymia, and were more likely to have physical abuse/neglect, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse than NSSI subjects without addictive features. Among participants with NSSI, the strongest predictors of addictive features of NSSI were female (OR = 2.405, 95% CI 1.512–3.824, p < 0.0001), alcohol use (OR = 2.179, 95% CI 1.378–3.446, p = 0.001), current suicidality (OR = 3.790, 95% CI 2.351–6.109, p < 0.0001), and psysical abuse in childhood (OR = 2.470, 95% CI 1.653–3.690, p < 0.0001). Nearly 3 out of 5 patients (12–22 years old) with NSSI met the criteria of NSSI with addictive features in this psychiatric outpatients sample. Our study demonstrated the importance of the necessity to regularly assess suicide risk, and alcohol use, as well as focus more on females and subjects who had physical abuse in childhood to prevent addictive NSSI.