Rates of self-harm in Galway city among highest in Ireland

Women and men in Galway City have the fifth and sixth highest rates of self-harm respectively in the country.

The latest annual report from the National Registry of Deliberate Self Harm based on data collected in hospital emergency departments from 2012 revealed that the rates in the city are much higher than in the county.

The rates for city women were also higher than that for men. Bucking the trend elsewhere, the rates for this group were on the increase.

The self-harm rate for females in the city was 313 per 100,000 – an increase of 1.8% on the 2011 data. The rate for males was 245 per 100,000 population – a decrease of over 4% on the year before.

In County Galway, there was a male rate of 107 per 100,000, which was a 26% decrease on the 2011 figures. This was the lowest male rate in the State. For females, the rate was 163, a drop of 3%.

The highest male and female rates in the country were in Limerick City, at 469 and 528 per 100,000. The lowest female rate was recorded for Monaghan at 141.

There are around 500 “self harm presentations” to the emergency department in Galway University Hospital according to the National Suicide Research Foundation, with 12,000 cases nationally reported by hospital staff.

In March, the Galway Roscommon Mental Health Services introduced a new self harm service to provide a tailored response to people who deliberately hurt themselves.

According to experts in the field, self harm is rarely an attempt to complete suicide but is a coping mechanism at a distressing time in their lives.

Read more in this week’s Connacht Sentinel