When Boys Hurt: A Pilot Study on Adolescent Males with Nonsuicidal Self-Injury

The current literature on nonsuicidal self-injury among male adolescents is lacking in amount and level of understanding in comparison to females. The purpose of this study is to determine the gender differences in treatment outcomes for adolescents with nonsuicidal self-injury in a Dialectical Behavior Therapy outpatient program. A total of 65 adolescent males and females from ages 12-18 who successfully graduated from the program were available for this study. Results show that the overall group of male and female patients reported a significant improvement in their levels of distress from baseline to post-treatment. Quantitative analyses conducted between male and female patients showed no significant differences in the number of treatment days, age, number of inpatient admissions during the program, number of previous psychiatric hospitalizations, and levels of overall distress at baseline and post-treatment. A case study analysis showed that typical male patient graduates included in the case study largely differed from the typical female patient graduates on some key demographic information. These included sexual orientation, history of abuse, history of abandonment, academic functioning, family history of mental illness, and history of inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations. Lastly, post-treatment outcomes show that none of the males indicated any psychiatric hospitalizations or outpatient treatment after being discharged from the program in comparison to 15.4% and 84.6% of females who reported post-treatment psychiatric hospitalization and outpatient treatment, respectively. The current study was able to provide preliminary support for the application of DBT for the adolescent male population. DBT is a powerful treatment approach that is able to successfully target both the male and the female adolescent population with NSSI. Future research should focus on the influence of group dynamics among patients in the program and gender differences in help-seeking behaviors