Journal article
When "Self-Harm" Means "Suicide": A Topic Modeling Study of Adolescent Online Help-Seeking for Self-Harm
Suicide & life-threatening behavior, v 55(6), e70055
Dec 2025
PMID: 41246992
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
The 15%-20% of adolescents worldwide who engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) face an increased risk of transitioning from suicidal ideation to suicide attempt. To resist NSSI urges, young people often seek peer support online. We examined adolescent help-seeking on a purpose-built online mental health peer support platform, which is a critically understudied help-seeking venue.
Adolescents' help-seeking posts in the "Self Harm" category on a large online peer support platform (575,261 posts from 114,937 users) were analyzed using topic modeling. We assessed the prevalence of NSSI-related topics versus morbid/suicidal topics.
Our 12-topic model produced interpretable themes. Three main findings emerged: posts included little information about the context of self-harm behavior; there was minimal evidence of pro-self-harm content in posts; and the primary topics of the posts were evenly split between NSSI-related topics and morbid/suicidal topics.
Our findings have important implications for online mental health communities: requiring users to select a narrow category for their post may limit contextual information; moderation of pro-self-harm content may reduce its prevalence; and the absence of dedicated spaces for suicidal users may funnel those users into NSSI-focused spaces, potentially increasing risk for all users.
Metrics
13 Record Views
Details
- Title
- When "Self-Harm" Means "Suicide": A Topic Modeling Study of Adolescent Online Help-Seeking for Self-Harm
- Creators
- Monika Neff Lind (Corresponding Author) - University of California, IrvineAfsaneh Razi - Drexel UniversityHanneke Scholten - Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the NetherlandsMadeleine J George - RTI InternationalMunmun De Choudhury - Georgia Institute of TechnologyIsabela Granic - McMaster UniversityShalini Lal - Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in RehabilitationPamela J Wisniewski - International Computer Science InstituteNicholas B Allen - University of Oregon
- Publication Details
- Suicide & life-threatening behavior, v 55(6), e70055
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Number of pages
- 8
- Grant note
- Society for Research in Child Development Jacobs Foundation
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001650787100011
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105021998410
- Other Identifier
- 991022133643504721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Psychiatry
- Psychology, Multidisciplinary